CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
codedownforwhat
codedownforwhat

Reputation: 173

How do i print a variable back into my function?

I'm trying to add the total costs of a users input via gets.chomp and then put that back into the function so it prints outs the total costs at the end of the function. Am i doing this right? 

def costs_of_company(hosting, design, phones, total_costs)
  puts "Total costs are as follows: \n"
  puts "Hosting costs $#{hosting}."
  puts "Design would cost $#{design}."
  puts "The cost for 100 Phones would be $#{phones}."
  puts "Total costs are #{total_costs}"
end

puts "Tell me the costs of your company. \n"
puts "hosting \n"
hosting = gets.chomp
puts "design \n"
design = gets.chomp
puts "phones \n"
phones = gets.chomp
total_costs = hosting + design + phones  #I think i am way off here.

costs_of_company(hosting, design, phones)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 41

Answers (2)

Dbz
Dbz

Reputation: 2761

The problem with the line total_costs = hosting + design + phones is that input is in String format. That would work if you did total_costs = hosting.to_i + design.to_i + phones.to_i

This is assuming all inputs are integers. Alternatively, use .to_f if you want to use decimals (floats).

Furthermore, you can also do hosting = gets.chomp.to_i, design = gets.chomp.to_i, and phones = gets.chomp.to_i

However, now we enter the realm of how do we know if the user gave us good input? The default behavior of .to_i is to default to zero if the input is not an integer e.g. "hello".to_i == 0. This is fine for most cases.

A more sophisticated approach would be to make a function that handles the user input so that you can sanitize everything in one place, AND handle errors. For example if you wanted to use Integer() instead of .to_i you would need to catch errors because an exception is thrown for invalid input with integer. Here is an example of using a regular expression to sanitize the input with exception handling.

def get_input
  while true
    begin
      input = gets.chomp.match(/d+/)[0]
    rescue Exception => e
      puts "that is not a valid integer. Please try again"
    else
      return input
    end
  end
end

Upvotes: 1

Rudi Cilibrasi
Rudi Cilibrasi

Reputation: 885

I would use .to_f for money to keep track of cents and print it a bit prettier. Here's a debugged version:

def print_money(val)
  format('%.2f',val)
end

def costs_of_company(hosting, design, phones)
  puts "Total costs are as follows: \n"
  puts "Hosting costs $#{print_money(hosting)}."
  puts "Design would cost $#{print_money(design)}."
  puts "The cost for 100 Phones would be $#{print_money(phones)}."
  total_costs = hosting + design + phones
  puts "Total costs are $#{print_money(total_costs)}"
end

puts "Tell me the costs of your company. \n"
puts "hosting \n"
hosting = gets.chomp.to_f
puts "design \n"
design = gets.chomp.to_f
puts "phones \n"
phones = gets.chomp.to_f

costs_of_company(hosting, design, phones)

Upvotes: 0

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