Comparability

Provides Comparator and declarative definition of comparison operator.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'comparability'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install comparability

Usage

ComparableBy (Declarative definition of comparison operator)

You can declaratively define your class's comparison with comparable_by method. To use, you need to extend your class with ComparableBy module.

require 'comparability'

class MyClass
  extend ComparableBy
  
  attr_reader :a, :b, :c, :d, :e
        
  comparable_by :a,                              # order of a
                [:b, reverse: true],             # reverse order of b
                [:c, nil: :first],               # order of c, ordered first if c is nil  
                [:d, reverse: true, nil: :last]  # reverse order of d, ordered last if d is nil  
                ->(_){ _.e.upcase },             # order of e, case-insensitive    
end  

Call of comparable_by defines <=> instance method, and includes Comparable module.
Each parameter to comparable_by should be either an instance of Comparator or arguments to Comparator.create in order of precedence.

Comparator

Some pre-defined comparisons are accessible with special methods. Other variations are created with Comparator.create.

natural order

The most simple Comparator which just evokes the comparison (spaceship) operator.

Comparator.natural_order                 # essentially compare(a,b) is defined as a <=> b
Comparator.natural_order(reverse: true)  # b <=> a instead

nil priority

This special Comparator orders only by whether object is nil or not.

Comparator.prioritize_nil(:first)  # nil is smaller
Comparator.prioritize_nil(:last)   # nil is bigger 

by attribute value

If you specify a symbol to Comparator.create, the comparator will compare objects by the results of the specified method.

Comparator.create(:size)                 # compares by size (prioritise smaller)
Comparator.create(:size, reverse: true)  # compares by size (prioritise bigger) 

You can use :nil option to specify the priority of nil value.

Comparator.create(:priority, nil: :last)                 # compares by priority (prioritise smaller, last if nil)
Comparator.create(:priority, reverse: true, nil: :last)  # compares by priority (prioritise bigger, last if nil) 

The attribute method can be public or protected, but not private.

by value extractor

If you specify a proc with arity 1 to Comparator.create, the comparator will compare objects by the results of the specified proc yielding each object.

You can also pass the comparison as block.

Comparator.create { |str| str.length }   # compares by length (prioritise shorter)  
Comparator.create { |str| -str.length }  # compares by length (prioritise longer)

with proc

If you specify a proc with arity 2 to Comparator.create, it creates a comparator defined by the specified proc.

You can also pass the comparison as block.

Comparator.create do |obj1, obj2| 
  # ... your comparison here ... 
end

chaining

You can chain comparators with Comparator.chain or its alias Comparator.[].

Comparator[comparator1, comparator2]  # compares with comparator1, then tie-breaks with comparator2

reversing

You can reverse existing comparators with Comparator.reverse.

Comparator.reverse(comparator)  # reverses the order

Enumerable#sort usage

Comparator#to_proc returns a Proc compatible with Enumerable#sort. You can use the ampersand shorthand to convert a comparator and pass as block.

comparator = Comparator[Comparator.prioritize_nil(:last), 
                        Comparator.natural_order(reverse: true)] 
[nil,1,2,3,4].sort(&comparator)  # => [4, 3, 2, 1, nil] 

Contributing

1. Fork it ( http://github.com/ippeiukai/comparability/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request