remove blank and whitespaces from array

Question

How do I get rid of whitespaces and blank items in an array

names = ["alice", "", "bob", " ", "yankee"]

desired result should be

["alice", "bob", "yankee"]

ok, re phrased it, I don't think it's a dup question, all I found was to use `.reject` which doesn't reject spaces and blank items in an array, Ursus answer helped me a lot! — xpnimi, Apr 20 '18 at 09:16
Look at the elements in your second array, they are not from the first array. — Sagar Pandya, Apr 20 '18 at 09:18
"Marked as a duplicate" except this is tagged ruby-on-rails and ruby, and the duplicate is marked just ruby, which gives other answers. E.g. in rails I would prefer using `blank?` and `present?` while in the duplicate they (obviously) prefer `empty?` which is only available on strings (but is pure ruby). — nathanvda, Apr 20 '18 at 09:22

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 20 '18 at 08:40

5

In rails is simple, use present?

names.select(&:present?)

answered Apr 20 '18 at 08:40

Ursus

thanks you. that is what I was looking for, helped lot! – xpnimi Apr 20 '18 at 09:17
My pleasure Sir – Ursus Apr 20 '18 at 09:19
also works for ruby – Roger Perez Nov 05 '20 at 22:15
`present?` is a rails' method though – Ursus Nov 05 '20 at 22:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 20 '18 at 08:47

0

If you try this below it will provide you with a new array assigned to newNames that does not include the empty elements.

newNames = names.reject { |n| n.empty? }

answered Apr 20 '18 at 08:47

Quinlayen

No, it doesn't, ` " "` is not empty. You need to write `p names.reject{|str| str.strip.empty?}` – Rajagopalan Apr 20 '18 at 10:29

2 Answers2