How to count identical string elements in a Ruby array

Question

I have the following Array = [\"Jason\", \"Jason\", \"Teresa\", \"Judah\", \"Michelle\", \"Judah\", \"Judah\", \"Allison\"]

How do I produce a count for

Answer 1

This is more a comment than an answer, but a comment wouldn't do it justice. If you do Array = foo, you crash at least one implementation of IRB:

C:\Documents and Settings\a.grimm>irb
irb(main):001:0> Array = nil
(irb):1: warning: already initialized constant Array
=> nil
C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:3177:in `rl_redisplay': undefined method `new' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:3873:in `readline_internal_setup'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:4704:in `readline_internal'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rbreadline.rb:4727:in `readline'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/readline.rb:40:in `readline'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/input-method.rb:115:in `gets'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:139:in `block (2 levels) in eval_input'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:271:in `signal_status'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:138:in `block in eval_input'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:189:in `call'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:189:in `buf_input'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:103:in `getc'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/slex.rb:205:in `match_io'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/slex.rb:75:in `match'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:287:in `token'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:263:in `lex'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:234:in `block (2 levels) in each_top_level_statement'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:230:in `loop'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:230:in `block in each_top_level_statement'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:229:in `catch'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb/ruby-lex.rb:229:in `each_top_level_statement'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:153:in `eval_input'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:70:in `block in start'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:69:in `catch'
        from C:/Ruby19/lib/ruby/1.9.1/irb.rb:69:in `start'
        from C:/Ruby19/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'

C:\Documents and Settings\a.grimm>

That's because Array is a class.

Answer 2

names = ["Jason", "Jason", "Teresa", "Judah", "Michelle", "Judah", "Judah", "Allison"]
Hash[names.group_by{|i| i }.map{|k,v| [k,v.size]}]
# => {"Jason"=>2, "Teresa"=>1, "Judah"=>3, "Michelle"=>1, "Allison"=>1}