Ruby: After inserting arrays into a list, how can I retrieve them and process them as arrays?

Question

Here's what I'm trying to do:

val1 = [26, 27, 24, 25, 29, 28]
val2 = [17, 20, 22, 21]
val3 = [36, 33, 31, 29]
val4 = [20, 18, 17, 22, 21, 23]

vals = {val1, val2, val3, val4}
sum = 0
count = 0

vals.each do |val|
  for i in 0..val.size-1 do
    #sum += val[i]
    p val[i]
    ++count
  end
end

puts sum
puts count

Initially I wanted to just get sum and count, but that wasn't working so I tried printing. I can see that the val[i] isn't working as I intended though. I tried doing this:

vals.each do |val|
  aux = val.to_a
  for i in 0..aux.size-1 do
    p aux[i]
    ++count
  end
end

But it had the same results. I'm still trying to learn the basics, so I really have no idea what to do now.

Answer 1

val1 = [26, 27, 24, 25, 29, 28]
val2 = [17, 20, 22, 21]
val3 = [36, 33, 31, 29]
val4 = [20, 18, 17, 22, 21, 23]

vals = [val1, val2, val3, val4]
sum = 0
count = 0

vals.each do |val|
  for i in 0...val.size do
    sum += val[i]
    p val[i]
    count += 1
  end
end

puts sum
puts count

This works. {} is not a list, [] is actually a list. When you write {val1, val2, val3, val4} you have created a hash, associative array, with val1 and val3 as keys and val2 and val4 as values. val would be in [val1, val2] form, no wonder you can't sum that up.

BTW, you can use ...size instead of ..size-1 in arrays. But val.each will still be better.

Answer 2

Come on guys this is Ruby!

val1 = [26, 27, 24, 25, 29, 28]
val2 = [17, 20, 22, 21]
val3 = [36, 33, 31, 29]
val4 = [20, 18, 17, 22, 21, 23]

vals = [val1, val2, val3, val4]

To get the sum...

vals.flatten.sum
=> 489

To get the count...

vals.flatten.count
=> 20

You could even return them both in a hash if you wanted...

vals.flatten.instance_eval { {:count => count, :sum => sum}}
=> {:count=>20, :sum=>489}