What is the easiest way to remove the first character from a string?

ghz 1years ago ⋅ 4979 views

Question

Example:

[12,23,987,43

What is the fastest, most efficient way to remove the "[", using maybe a chop() but for the first character?

Answer

I kind of favor using something like:

asdf = "[12,23,987,43"
asdf[0] = '' 

p asdf
# >> "12,23,987,43"

I'm always looking for the fastest and most readable way of doing things:

require 'benchmark'

N = 1_000_000

puts RUBY_VERSION

STR = "[12,23,987,43"

Benchmark.bm(7) do |b|
  b.report('[0]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[0] = '' } }
  b.report('sub') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".sub(/^\[+/, "") } }

  b.report('gsub') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".gsub(/^\[/, "") } }
  b.report('[1..-1]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[1..-1] } }
  b.report('slice') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".slice!(0) } }
  b.report('length') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[1..STR.length] } }

end

Running on my Mac Pro:

1.9.3
              user     system      total        real
[0]       0.840000   0.000000   0.840000 (  0.847496)
sub       1.960000   0.010000   1.970000 (  1.962767)
gsub      4.350000   0.020000   4.370000 (  4.372801)
[1..-1]   0.710000   0.000000   0.710000 (  0.713366)
slice     1.020000   0.000000   1.020000 (  1.020336)
length    1.160000   0.000000   1.160000 (  1.157882)

Updating to incorporate one more suggested answer:

require 'benchmark'

N = 1_000_000

class String
  def eat!(how_many = 1)
    self.replace self[how_many..-1]
  end

  def first(how_many = 1)
    self[0...how_many]
  end

  def shift(how_many = 1)
    shifted = first(how_many)
    self.replace self[how_many..-1]
    shifted
  end
  alias_method :shift!, :shift
end

class Array
  def eat!(how_many = 1)
    self.replace self[how_many..-1]
  end
end

puts RUBY_VERSION

STR = "[12,23,987,43"

Benchmark.bm(7) do |b|
  b.report('[0]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[0] = '' } }
  b.report('sub') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".sub(/^\[+/, "") } }

  b.report('gsub') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".gsub(/^\[/, "") } }
  b.report('[1..-1]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[1..-1] } }
  b.report('slice') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".slice!(0) } }
  b.report('length') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[1..STR.length] } }
  b.report('eat!') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".eat! } }
  b.report('reverse') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".reverse.chop.reverse } }
end

Which results in:

2.1.2
              user     system      total        real
[0]       0.300000   0.000000   0.300000 (  0.295054)
sub       0.630000   0.000000   0.630000 (  0.631870)
gsub      2.090000   0.000000   2.090000 (  2.094368)
[1..-1]   0.230000   0.010000   0.240000 (  0.232846)
slice     0.320000   0.000000   0.320000 (  0.320714)
length    0.340000   0.000000   0.340000 (  0.341918)
eat!      0.460000   0.000000   0.460000 (  0.452724)
reverse   0.400000   0.000000   0.400000 (  0.399465)

And another using /^./ to find the first character:

require 'benchmark'

N = 1_000_000

class String
  def eat!(how_many = 1)
    self.replace self[how_many..-1]
  end

  def first(how_many = 1)
    self[0...how_many]
  end

  def shift(how_many = 1)
    shifted = first(how_many)
    self.replace self[how_many..-1]
    shifted
  end
  alias_method :shift!, :shift
end

class Array
  def eat!(how_many = 1)
    self.replace self[how_many..-1]
  end
end

puts RUBY_VERSION

STR = "[12,23,987,43"

Benchmark.bm(7) do |b|
  b.report('[0]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[0] = '' } }
  b.report('[/^./]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[/^./] = '' } }
  b.report('[/^\[/]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[/^\[/] = '' } }
  b.report('sub+') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".sub(/^\[+/, "") } }
  b.report('sub') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".sub(/^\[/, "") } }
  b.report('gsub') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".gsub(/^\[/, "") } }
  b.report('[1..-1]') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[1..-1] } }
  b.report('slice') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".slice!(0) } }
  b.report('length') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43"[1..STR.length] } }
  b.report('eat!') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".eat! } }
  b.report('reverse') { N.times { "[12,23,987,43".reverse.chop.reverse } }
end

Which results in:

# >> 2.1.5
# >>               user     system      total        real
# >> [0]       0.270000   0.000000   0.270000 (  0.270165)
# >> [/^./]    0.430000   0.000000   0.430000 (  0.432417)
# >> [/^\[/]   0.460000   0.000000   0.460000 (  0.458221)
# >> sub+      0.590000   0.000000   0.590000 (  0.590284)
# >> sub       0.590000   0.000000   0.590000 (  0.596366)
# >> gsub      1.880000   0.010000   1.890000 (  1.885892)
# >> [1..-1]   0.230000   0.000000   0.230000 (  0.223045)
# >> slice     0.300000   0.000000   0.300000 (  0.299175)
# >> length    0.320000   0.000000   0.320000 (  0.325841)
# >> eat!      0.410000   0.000000   0.410000 (  0.409306)
# >> reverse   0.390000   0.000000   0.390000 (  0.393044)

Here's another update on faster hardware and a newer version of Ruby:

2.3.1
              user     system      total        real
[0]       0.200000   0.000000   0.200000 (  0.204307)
[/^./]    0.390000   0.000000   0.390000 (  0.387527)
[/^\[/]   0.360000   0.000000   0.360000 (  0.360400)
sub+      0.490000   0.000000   0.490000 (  0.492083)
sub       0.480000   0.000000   0.480000 (  0.487862)
gsub      1.990000   0.000000   1.990000 (  1.988716)
[1..-1]   0.180000   0.000000   0.180000 (  0.181673)
slice     0.260000   0.000000   0.260000 (  0.266371)
length    0.270000   0.000000   0.270000 (  0.267651)
eat!      0.400000   0.010000   0.410000 (  0.398093)
reverse   0.340000   0.000000   0.340000 (  0.344077)

Why is gsub so slow?

After doing a search/replace, gsub has to check for possible additional matches before it can tell if it's finished. sub only does one and finishes. Consider gsub like it's a minimum of two sub calls.

Also, it's important to remember that gsub, and sub can also be handicapped by poorly written regex which match much more slowly than a sub- string search. If possible anchor the regex to get the most speed from it. There are answers here on Stack Overflow demonstrating that so search around if you want more information.

#ruby