String Traversal

tags: string-traversal traverse traverse-sequence

Many computations involve processing a string one character at a time. Each character is selected from the string and something is performed to the character. This type of processing is called a string traversal. A while loop or for loop can be used for string traversals.

In general the term traverse means to iterate through the items in a sequence, performing a similar operation on each item. Search is a type of traversal that stops when it finds the element meeting some criteria.

For instance, a function that takes a string as an argument and displays the letters can be implemented as shown below:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

def traverse(domain)
  letters = domain.chars
  
  for letter in letters
    p letter
  end
end

p traverse('codingskill.net')

Names can be generated by traversing over the prefixes and concatenating suffix.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

def naming(prefixes, suffix)
  letters = prefixes.chars
  
  for letter in letters
    p letter + suffix
  end
end

p naming("ABCDE", 'eees')