Ruby Array Search Method Not Working As Intended - arrays

Question

I am having trouble making the search method that i wrote in my script to work. Here is the relevant code from the script:
$records = []
def xml_extractor(document)
document.xpath("//record").each do |record|
$records << {"id" => record.xpath('id').text,
"first_name" => record.xpath('first_name').text,
"last_name" => record.xpath('last_name').text,
"email" => record.xpath('email').text,
"gender" => record.xpath('gender').text,
"ip_address" => record.xpath('ip_address').text,
"send_date" => record.xpath('send_date').text,
"email_body" => record.xpath('email_body').text,
"email_title" => record.xpath('email_title').text}
puts record
end
puts "\nAll records loaded!"
end
def search_by_ip(ip)
record_to_return = $records.select {|k| k["ip_address"] == ip.to_s}
puts JSON.pretty_generate(record_to_return)
end
Basically my xml_extractor method works fine and it stores everything into the array using nokogiri. The xml file that is being implemented has a thousand records each having its own first_name, last_name etc. But the problem is when i try to implement the search_by_ip method on the array a "null" value is returned, when what the method should really be doing is returning the entire record that belongs to that specific ip address. Also, i realised that every time i implement the xml_extractor method, i.e. when an xml document is parsed in into the array, the contents arent really saved in rather they are only displayed for while the loop is going. Which might be why I get a "null" for my search methods. Let me know what you guys think though.

Answer 1

I wrote an example of how to use OO to obtain what you want.
I don't have your document so I simplified your document to a 2 dimensional array
In the method read switch the comment to work with your xml
Each method can be chained and does only what is required
They can all be tested separatly (here by p'ting them)
class Xml_extractor
attr_reader :document, :records
def initialize document
#document = document
#records = []
end
def read
# #document.xpath("//record").each do |record|
#document.each do |record|
#records << {id: record[0], ip_address: record[1]}
end
self # return self so that you can chain another method
end
def search_by_ip(ip)
#return first of an array if found, nil otherwise
# attention to use a hash key here to search, not a string
#records.select {|k| k[:ip_address] == ip.to_s}.first
end
end
document = [[0, "192.168.0.1"], [1, "192.168.0.2"]]
p Xml_extractor.new(document).read.records
# [{:id=>0, :ip_address=>"192.168.0.1"}, {:id=>1, :ip_address=>"192.168.0.2"}]
p Xml_extractor.new(document).read.search_by_ip("192.168.0.2")
# [{:id=>1, :ip_address=>"192.168.0.2"}]
p Xml_extractor.new(document).read.search_by_ip("192.168.0.2").to_json
# "[{\"id\":1,\"ip_address\":\"192.168.0.2\"}]"

Answer 2

In ruby your method will return the last line. If you want your method to return data, you need to return it on the last line. puts doesn't return anything.
Try to change like this:
def search_by_ip(ip)
record_to_return = $records.select {|k| k["ip_address"] == ip.to_s}
puts JSON.pretty_generate(record_to_return)
record_to_return
end