Ruby Convert Array of Strings to Integers

1. Introduction

Dealing with arrays of strings that represent numbers is a common occurrence in Ruby programming. There are instances when these strings need to be converted to integers for various operations — be it mathematical calculations, database transactions, or just conditional logic. Ruby provides a clean and efficient way to convert these string arrays into arrays of integers.

In Ruby, when we talk about converting an array of strings to integers, we refer to the process of transforming each string element of the array, which represents a numeric value, into an actual integer object.

2. Program Steps

1. Define the array of strings that needs to be converted.

2. Iterate over the array and convert each string to an integer.

3. Store the converted integers into a new array.

3. Code Program

# Step 1: Define the array of strings
string_array = ['1', '2', '3', '4', '5']
# Step 2 and 3: Iterate and convert each string to an integer, then store it in a new array
integer_array = string_array.map(&:to_i)
# Output the resulting array of integers
puts integer_array.inspect

Output:

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Explanation:

1. string_array is our initial array containing numeric values as strings.

2. map(&:to_i) is used to iterate over string_array. The :to_i method is called on each element, which converts the string to an integer.

3. integer_array is the new array that stores the converted integers.

4. Using puts integer_array.inspect prints the integer_array to the console, displaying the transformation result.