Search code examples
rubyfiletext

How to pass text file as an argument in Ruby

I need to pass a text file as an argument instead of opening it inside the code. The content of the text file should print on console. I have done the following code:

File.open("test_list.txt").each do |line|
    puts line
end

Please advice.

Solution

  • On your shell, invoke the ruby script followed by the name of the .txt file, like this:

    ruby foo.rb test_list.txt

    The variable ARGV will contain references to all the arguments you've passed when invoking the ruby interpreter. In particular, ARGV[0] = "test_list.txt", so you can use this instead of hardcoding the name of the file:

    File.open(ARGV[0]).each do |line|
    puts line
end



    On the other hand, if you want to pass the content of the file to your program, you can go with:

    cat test_list.txt | ruby foo.rb

    and in the program:

    STDIN.each_line do |line|
    puts line
end