Rails: Enumerable#group_by

Documentation

Collect an enumerable into sets, grouped by the result of a block. Useful, for example, for grouping records by date.

e.g.

  latest_transcripts.group_by(&:day).each do |day, transcripts|
    p "#{day} -> #{transcripts.map(&:class) * ', '}"
  end
  "2006-03-01 -> Transcript"
  "2006-02-28 -> Transcript"
  "2006-02-27 -> Transcript, Transcript"
  "2006-02-26 -> Transcript, Transcript"
  "2006-02-25 -> Transcript"
  "2006-02-24 -> Transcript, Transcript"
  "2006-02-23 -> Transcript"

Usage
The Enumerable#group_by method is helpful for grouping elements of an Enumerable by an attribute or an arbitrary grouping. The documentation provides a good example of how to group by an attribute; however, the group_by method can be used logically group by anything returned from the block given to group_by.

Test

require 'rubygems'
require 'active_support'
require 'test/unit'
require 'dust'

unit_tests do
  test "group by grades" do
    grades = [50, 55, 60, 62, 71, 83, 84, 85, 99]
    expected = {"A"=>[99], "B"=>[83, 84, 85], "C"=>[71], "D"=>[60, 62], "F"=>[50, 55]}
    actual = grades.group_by do |grade|
      case
        when grade < 60 then "F"
        when grade < 70 then "D"
        when grade < 80 then "C"
        when grade < 90 then "B"
        else "A"
      end
    end
    assert_equal expected, actual
  end
end