How can I flatten an array in Ruby?

How can I flatten an array in Ruby?

You can use the flatten method in Ruby to flatten an array. For example, array.flatten will return a one-dimensional array.

What if I have a nested array with different levels of depth?

The flatten method will handle that too! It will flatten the array to a single level by default. If you want to limit the depth, you can pass an argument like array.flatten(1).

Can you show me an example with code?

Sure! Here's an example:

nested_array = [1, [2, 3], [[4, 5], 6]]
flattened_array = nested_array.flatten
puts flattened_array.inspect

This will output: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

Is there a way to flatten an array without using the built-in method?

Yes! You can use recursion to flatten an array manually. Here's a simple example:

def custom_flatten(array)
  array.each_with_object([]) do |element, result|
    if element.is_a?(Array)
      result.concat(custom_flatten(element))
    else
      result << element
    end
  end
end

This will achieve the same result!