Grouping an array by comparing 2 adjacent elements

Question

I have an array of objects and I would like to group them based on the difference between the attributes of 2 adjacent elements. The array is already sorted by that attribute. F

Answer 1

Following Jan Dvorak's suggestion, this solution uses slice_before and a hash to keep the state:

class GroupByAdjacentDifference < Struct.new(:data)
  def group_by(difference)
    initial = { prev: data.first }

    data.slice_before(initial) do |item, state|
      prev, state[:prev] = state[:prev], item
      value_for(item) - value_for(prev) > difference
    end.to_a
  end

  def value_for(elem)
    elem.attribute
  end
end

require 'rspec/autorun'

describe GroupByAdjacentDifference do

  let(:a) { double("a", attribute: 1) }
  let(:b) { double("b", attribute: 3) }
  let(:c) { double("c", attribute: 6) }
  let(:d) { double("d", attribute: 9) }
  let(:e) { double("e", attribute: 10) }

  let(:data) { [a, b, c, d, e] }
  let(:service) { described_class.new(data) }

  context "#group_by" do
    it "groups data by calculating adjacent difference" do
      expect(service.group_by(2)).to eq([[a, b], [c], [d, e]])
    end
  end
end

which gives

$ ruby group_by_adjacent_difference.rb
.

Finished in 0.0048 seconds
1 example, 0 failures

In alternative, local variables could also be used to keep state, although I find it a bit harder to read:

class GroupByAdjacentDifference < Struct.new(:data)
  def group_by(difference)
    tmp = data.first

    data.slice_before do |item|
      tmp, prev = item, tmp
      value_for(item) - value_for(prev) > difference
    end.to_a
  end

  def value_for(elem)
    elem.attribute
  end
end