Part 2: Adding Contacts

Code Samples

We write the following code in this video. A line by line explanation follows:

def add_contact
  contact = {"name" => "", "phone_numbers" => []}
  contact["name"] = ask("What is the person's name?")
  answer = ""
  while answer != "n"
    answer = ask("Do you want to add a phone number? (y/n)")
    if answer == "y"
      phone = ask("Enter a phone number:")
      contact["phone_numbers"].push(phone)
    end
  end
end

answer = ""
while answer != "n"
  contact_list.push(add_contact())
end

Code Explanation

First, we create our add_contact method:

def add_contact

We then set up a default contact hash which the method will return. The hash has two keys -- name which is a string and phone_numbers which is an array:

  contact = {"name" => "", "phone_numbers" => []}

We then add the name by calling the ask method. The ask method returns a string, which is immediately assigned to the name attribute:

  contact["name"] = ask("What is the person's name?")

Next, we set up our answer and loop until the user doesn't want to enter any more phone numbers:

  answer = ""
  while answer != "n"
    answer = ask("Do you want to add a phone number? (y/n)")

If the user answers "y" we ask for a phone number using the ask method. The result is assigned to the phone variable which with then append to the contact["phone_numbers"] array:

    if answer == "y"
      phone = ask("Enter a phone number:")
      contact["phone_numbers"].push(phone)
    end

The next lines close the conditional and loop indentation:

  end
end

Finally, we set up the answer variable and loop adding contacts until the user is done:

answer = ""
while answer != "n"
  contact_list.push(add_contact())
end