Hulihan Applications Blog

Sort By Tag: Ruby

Filtering out Swear words in Ruby

06:04 PM April 01, 2008

I was looking around for a quick couple of lines of code that would search out any string for a swear word and replace it with a cleaner word. I had a little trouble finding an easy example, so here's one for you. I use a modified version of this script for a lot of my applications:

$ nano filter_swear_words.rb

#!/usr/bin/ruby
@string = "What the funk"

@bad_words = Hash.new
@bad_words[:funk] = "funny" #the [:funk] is the bad word, and the "funny" is the replacement@bad_words[:shoot] = "shucks" # add more in this fashion

@seperated_words = @string.split(" ") # seperate content by spaces

print "Original String: #{@string}\n"

@cleaned_string = ""

for word in @seperated_words
@bad_words.each do |bad_word, replacement|
if word == bad_word.to_s # if the word we're looking at is bad

word = replacement # replcae the word

else # the word is we're looking at is okay
end
end

@cleaned_string << word + " "
end

print "Cleaned String: #{@cleaned_string}\n"

So when we run the script, here's what we get:

$ ruby filter_swear_words.rb

Original String: What the funk
Cleaned String: What the funny

attr_accessor and ruby object variables

08:12 AM December 21, 2007

In most other languages(java, c++, etc.), when you create an object, you have to define the variables that will make up the structure of the object. You also usually add a getter(retrieves the variable) and a setter(sets/writes the contents of the variable) so you can access the variable.

However, in Ruby, you only need one line of code that will do all of the above:

attr_accessor :myvar

This creates the getter and setter methods from the variable, which(by default) look like this:

def myvar #this is the getter

@myvar #returns the contents of @myvar

end

def myvar(anything) #this is the setter

@myvar = anything #set the contents of myvar to anything!

end

You're also looking at the code to override the methods, too! Example: If you want to create a backup variable whenever you create the original, do this:

app/model/example.rb

Class Example

attr_accessor :myvar

def myvar=(anything) #this is the setter

@myvar_backup = @myvar #backup the original variable

@myvar = anything #set the contents of myvar to anything!

end

script/console

@myExample = Example.new
=> #<Example:0x2b50b2c3d560>
>> @myExample.inspect # see what the object has
=> "#<Example:0x2b50b2c3d560>"
>> @myExample.myvar = "hello!" # set the variable
=> "hello!"
>> @myExample.inspect # see what the object has now
=> "#<Example:0x2b50b2c3d560 @myvar_backup=\"hello!\", @myvar=\"hello!\">"

Also, if you just wanted the getter or setter only, you would use:

attr_reader :myvar or attr_writer :myvar