Ruby longest word in array

I built this method to find the longest word in an array, but I'm wondering if there's a better way to have done it. I'm pretty new to Ruby, and just did this as an exercise for learning the inject method.

It returns ei开发者_JAVA百科ther the longest word in an array, or an array of the equal longest words.

class Array
  def longest_word
    # Convert array elements to strings in the event that they're not.
    test_array = self.collect { |e| e.to_s }
    test_array.inject() do |word, comparison|
      if word.kind_of?(Array) then
        if word[0].length == comparison.length then
          word << comparison
        else
          word[0].length > comparison.length ? word : comparison
        end
      else
        # If words are equal, they are pushed into an array
        if word.length == comparison.length then
          the_words = Array.new
          the_words << word
          the_words << comparison
        else
          word.length > comparison.length ? word : comparison
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

---

I would do

class Array
  def longest_word
    group_by(&:size).max.last
  end
end

---

Ruby has a standard method for returning an element in a list with the maximum of a value.

anArray.max{|a, b| a.length <=> b.length}

or you can use the max_by method

anArray.max_by(&:length)

to get all the elements with the maximum length

max_length = anArray.max_by(&:length).length
all_with_max_length = anArray.find_all{|x| x.length = max_length}

---

Here's one using inject (doesn't work for an empty array):

words.inject(['']){|a,w|
  case w.length <=> a.last.length
  when -1
    a
  when 0
    a << w
  when 1
    [w]
  end
}

which can be shortened to

words.inject(['']){|a,w|
  [a + [w], [w], a][w.length <=> a.last.length]
}

for those who like golf.

---

A two liner:

vc = ['asd','s','1234','1235'].sort{|a,b| b.size <=> a.size}
vc.delete_if{|a| a.size < vc.first.size} 


#Output
["1235", "1234"]

or if you want use inject, this use your idea, but its more short.

test_array.inject{ |ret,word|
   ret = [ret] unless ret.kind_of?(Array)

   ret << word  if word.size == ret.first.size
   ret = [word] if word.size > ret.first.size
   ret
}

---

module Enumerable
  def longest_word
    (strings = map(&:to_s)).
      zip(strings.map(&:length)).
      inject([[''],0]) {|(wws, ll), (w, l)|
        case  l <=> ll
        when -1 then [wws, ll] 
        when  1 then [[w], l]
        else         [wws + [w], ll]
        end
      }.first
  end
end

This method only depends on generic Enumerable methods, there's nothing Array specific about it, therefore we can pull it up into the Enumerable module, where it will also be available for Sets or Enumerators, not just Arrays.

---

This solution uses the inject method to accumulate the longest strings in an array, then picks the ones with the highest length.

animals = ["mouse", "cat", "bird", "bear", "moose"]

animals.inject(Hash.new{|h,k| h[k] = []}) { |acc, e| acc[e.size] << e; acc }.sort.last[1]

This returns: ["mouse", "mouse"]