Ruby Loops: Repeating Something Many Times

What is A Loop?

In this lesson you’ll learn many different ways to write a Ruby loop.

A loop lets you repeat an action many times.

You can go over a list of things, like an array or a hash, and work with each individual element.

Let’s start with the most important looping method…

The Ruby Each Loop

You need a collection of items to use the each loop, like an array, a range or a hash.

Example:

numbers = [1, 3, 5, 7]

numbers.each { |n| puts n }

In plain English this is saying:

“For each element in numbers print its value.”

The way you tell the each method what do with every item is by using a block…

…in this example the whole thing after each is a block: { |n| puts n }.

What happens is that each will use the block once for every element in the array & pass every individual element into it, so this n is a variable that changes.

Each Method With a Hash

If you want to use each with a hash you will need two parameters (one for the key & another for the value).

Example:

hash = {bacon: 300, coconut: 200}

hash.each { |key,value| puts "#{key} price is #{value}" }

Give this a try!

How to Use Each With Index

There are cases where you want to use each but you need the index number.

You can use the each_with_index method:

animals = ["cat", "dog", "tiger"]

animals.each_with_index { |animal, idx| puts "We have a #{animal} with index #{idx}" }

The Times Loop

This is the easiest loop you can work with.

Look at this code:

10.times { puts "hello" }

This will print the word "hello" 10 times.

There isn’t much to it & it should be easy to remember.

But what if you want the number?

In the last example, with the each loop, we had access to this n variable so we could print it.

You can also do that with times.

Example:

10.times { |i| puts "hello #{i}" }

This will print hello 0, hello 1, hello 2, etc.

Give it a try!

The key here is the little |i| thing, which by the way, can be any valid variable name. It doesn’t have to be an |i|. It could be |n| or |foo|, or |bacon|…

It’s just a name!

If you are familiar with methods, this |n| is like a method parameter.

In other words, it’s just a variable that becomes the current value for each iteration of our times loop.

Range Looping

You may have noticed that when using the times method it starts counting from 0.

This can be a bit inconvenient if you want to start with a different number.

You can use a range & the each method to have more control over the starting & ending numbers.

Example:

(1..10).each { |i| puts i }

This will print all the numbers from 1 to 10.

Ruby While Loop

The while loop is available in most programming languages so it’s always useful to know. It’s also the kind of loop that you can fall-back to when everything else fails.

And there are situations when only a while loop would make sense. For example, if you don’t know how many times you need to loop in advance.

Here’s a code example:

n = 0

while n < 10
  puts n
  n += 1
end

This will print all the numbers from 0 to 9 (10 excluded).

Notice that there are some important components:

• The n variable
• The condition (n < 10)
• The n += 1

All of these components are critical for this to work.

The variable n holds the value we are using for counting, the condition (n < 10) tells Ruby when to stop this loop (when the value of n is greater or equal to 10), and the n += 1 advances the counter to make progress.

If you forget to increase the counter in your while loop you’ll run into a program that never ends.

An infinite loop.

Skipping Iterations

In all of these loop types you can skip iterations.

Let’s say that you are going over an array of numbers & you want to skip odd numbers.

You could do something like this:

10.times do |i|
  next unless i.even?

  puts "hello #{i}"
end

The key here is the next keyword, which skips to the next loop iteration (the next number in this case).

A better way to do this is to use other methods like step & select.

Example:

(0...10).step(2) { |i| puts i }

How to Stop A Loop Early

You can also break out of a loop early, before the condition is met, or before you go over all the elements of the collection.

The following example stops when it finds a number higher than 10:

numbers = [1,2,4,9,12]

numbers.each do |n|
  break if n > 10

  puts n
end

The key here is the Ruby break keyword.

Summary

You have learned many different ways to loop in Ruby!

Including the times method, the each method & the while keyword.

You have also learned how to control the loops by skipping iterations with next & breaking out of loops with break.

With all of these methods you NEVER have to use the for loop, which is a useless remnant from other languages.

If you want to write code that feels like Ruby (what we call “idiomatic code”) use the looping methods you learned on this guide.