Add element to an array if it's not there already

Question

I have a Ruby class

class MyClass
  attr_writer :item1, :item2
end

my_array = get_array_of_my_class() #my_array is an array of MyClass
unique_array_of_item1 = [         


        

Answer 1

You don't need to iterate through my_array by hand.

my_array.push(item1) unless my_array.include?(item1)

Edit:

As Tombart points out in his comment, using Array#include? is not very efficient. I'd say the performance impact is negligible for small Arrays, but you might want to go with Set for bigger ones.