Best way to return array of counted values for multiple date ranges in Rails

Question

I'm trying to return an array of counted values for consecutive date ranges (that will vary in distance), so that I have something like the following:

counted_values = [2,0,4,5,6,0,0,4,2]

So far I've written something that works but makes me shudder slightly, as I'm sure there's a more Rubyist/Rails way of doing it.

Current code:

      startdate = @event.running_from
      enddate = @event.running_to
      totaltime = enddate - startdate
      timesegment = totaltime / 20
      segmentstart = startdate
      segmentend = startdate + timesegment
      @counted_values = []
      20.times {
        count = SignUp.count(:conditions => { :event_id => @event.id, :created_at => segmentstart..segmentend})
        @counted_values << count
        segmentstart = segmentend
        segmentend = segmentend + timesegment
      }

Can anyone help clean this up a bit?

Answer 1

Maybe this construct would help you?

irb(main):253:0> (0..3).step 1.5 do |i|
irb(main):254:1*   puts i
irb(main):255:1> end
0
1.5
3.0
=> 0..3

Could look something like this:

  segmentlength = (enddate-startdate) / 20
  @counted_values = []
  (startdate...enddate).step segmentlength |start|{
    @counted_values << SignUp.count(:conditions => { :event_id => @event.id, :created_at => start..(start+segmentlength)})
  }