Title capitalization exercise from The Odin Project

Question

I just finished the book title class exercise for The Odin Project and I would appreciate some honest feedback for my code. The code is intended to be "test-driven learning", and therefore emulates test driven development

Here is the test spec:

require 'book'

describe Book do

  before do
    @book = Book.new
  end

  describe 'title' do
    it 'should capitalize the first letter' do
      @book.title = "inferno"
      expect(@book.title).to eq("Inferno")
    end

    it 'should capitalize every word' do
      @book.title = "stuart little"
      expect(@book.title).to eq("Stuart Little")
    end

    describe 'should capitalize every word except...' do
      describe 'articles' do
        specify 'the' do
          @book.title = "alexander the great"
          expect(@book.title).to eq("Alexander the Great")
        end

        specify 'a' do
          @book.title = "to kill a mockingbird"
          expect(@book.title).to eq("To Kill a Mockingbird")
        end

        specify 'an' do
          @book.title = "to eat an apple a day"
          expect(@book.title).to eq("To Eat an Apple a Day")
        end
      end

      specify 'conjunctions' do
        @book.title = "war and peace"
        expect(@book.title).to eq("War and Peace")
      end

      specify 'prepositions' do
        @book.title = "love in the time of cholera"
        expect(@book.title).to eq("Love in the Time of Cholera")
      end
    end

    describe 'should always capitalize...' do
      specify 'I' do
        @book.title = "what i wish i knew when i was 20"
        expect(@book.title).to eq("What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20")
      end

      specify 'the first word' do
        @book.title = "the man in the iron mask"
        expect(@book.title).to eq("The Man in the Iron Mask")
      end
    end
  end
end

Here if my code:

class Book
  attr_accessor :title

  def title=(book)
    lowercase = ["and", "or", "the", "of", "in", "a", "an"]
    @title = book.capitalize.split(" ").map do |word|
      if lowercase.include? word
        word
      else
        word.capitalize
      end
    end.join(" ")
  end

end

Answer 1

Your code looks good. But I have some suggestions. lowercase array will be created on each method call, so we can just declare it as class level constant (and use %w() syntax):

LOWERCASE = %w(and or the of in a an).freeze

Try to use single quotes if possible.

It is possible to use next inside map block to avoid if/else. And split(' ') is the same as split.

Regarding specs. There's neat RSpec feature called shared_examples(RSpec shared_example).

Here's my suggested refactoring:

class Book
  attr_accessor :title

  LOWERCASE = %w(and or the of in a an).freeze

  def title=(book)
    @title = book.capitalize.split.map do |word|
      next word if LOWERCASE.include?(word)
      word.capitalize
    end.join(' ')
  end

end

RSpec.shared_examples 'capitalize' do |message, text, title|
  let!(:book) { described_class.new }
  let!(:assign_title) { book.title = text }

  it message do
    expect(subject).to eq(title)
  end
end

RSpec.describe Book do
  context 'title' do
    subject { book.title }

    it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'first letter', 'inferno', 'Inferno'
    it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'every word', 'stuart little', 'Stuart Little'

    context 'articles' do
      it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'except "the"', 'alexander the great', 'Alexander the Great'
      it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'except "a"', 'to kill a mockingbird', 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
      it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'except "an"', 'to eat an apple a day', 'To Eat an Apple a Day'
    end

    it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'except conjunctions', 'war and peace', 'War and Peace'
    it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'except prepositions', 'love in the time of cholera', 'Love in the Time of Cholera'
    it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'always for "I"', 'what i wish i knew when i was 20', 'What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20'
    it_behaves_like 'capitalize', 'always for first word', 'the man in the iron mask', 'The Man in the Iron Mask'
  end
end

Answer 2

I'm not a big fan of using capitalize on the whole string to ensure that first word stays capitalized. I'd really rather add && index != 0 to the condition to express is clearly, although I'm not sure that everyone would agree with that on me.

Other than that, your code is fine.