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Ruby Ruby Booleans Build a Simple Todo List Program Part 4: Removing Todo Items

Mateo Sossah
Mateo Sossah
6,598 Points
Posted by Mateo Sossah
Mateo Sossah
6,598 Points

Why can't we use -> todo_items.delete(name)

I tried the following and it is not working. Anybody knows why and how it could be fixed? 

def remove_item(name)
  todo_items.delete(name)
end

Thanks!

1 Answer

Mateo Sossah
Mateo Sossah
6,598 Points
Mateo Sossah
Mateo Sossah
6,598 Points

I found an answer using both the for loop and todo_items.delete(name). I still would love an explanation as why my initial solution didn't work and if this one is valid as it looks shorter than the one in the video:

  def remove_item(name)
      for todo_item in todo_items do
        if todo_item.name == name
          todo_items.delete(todo_item)
        end
      end
  end

[MOD: added code blocks]

Kourosh Raeen
Kourosh Raeen
23,733 Points
Kourosh Raeen
Kourosh Raeen
23,733 Points

Your initial solution doesn't work because todo_items is an array containing objects of type todo_item; however what you are trying to delete from todo_items is not an object of type todo_item, but an attribute/member variable of such object.

The second solution works since what you are deleting from the list_items array is a todo_item object.

I would also suggest adding a couple of return statements to the method:

def remove_item(name)
  for todo_item in todo_items do
    if todo_item.name == name
      todo_items.delete(todo_item)
      return true
    end
  end
  return false
end

You could also use the each method instead:

def remove_item(name)
  todo_items.each do |todo_item|
    if todo_item.name == name
      todo_items.delete(todo_item)
      return true
    end
  end
  return false
end

Hope this helps.