Remove First and Last Character (8kyu) [Ruby]

Chek kata on Codewars

Description:

It's pretty straightforward. Your goal is to create a function that removes the first and last characters of a string. You're given one parameter, the original string. You don't have to worry with strings with less than two characters.

Solution 1.1

Let's start with a naive solution. Solving with loop.

def remove_char(s)
    new_s = ''
    i = 1

    while i < s.length - 1
        new_s += s[i]
        i += 1
    end

    new_s
end

Solution 2.1

A more efficient solution will be to use slice method.

def remove_char(s)
 s[1...-1]
end

Solution 2.2

Or if don't like so many dots 😅

def remove_char(s)
 s[1..-2]
end

Solution 3.1

Not the most efficient solution. But we can convert a string to an array and use array methods.

def remove_char(s)
    new_s = s.split('')
    new_s.pop
    new_s.shift
    new_s.join
end

Solution 4.1

Also, we can use a regular expression here with the replace method.

def remove_char(s)
  s.gsub(/^\w|\w\b/, "")
end