Ruby is beautiful – longest word length

Sometimes it makes me smile how things can be implemented in such a simple and beautiful way in Ruby.

We needed a method to return the length of the longest word in a string. So we opened up the String class and gave it a new toy to play with:

class String
  # Returns the length of the longest word in the string
  def longest_word_length
    words = self.split(' ')
    words.any? ? words.max{ |a,b| a.length <=> b.length }.length : 0
  end
end

Of course, an RSpec example will keep our testing Yang intact!

describe String do
  it "can determine the longest word in a string" do
    "".longest_word_length.should eql(0)
    "hello".longest_word_length.should eql(5)
    "this is the longest word".longest_word_length.should eql(7)
    "two words".longest_word_length.should eql(5)
    "same size".longest_word_length.should eql(4)
  end
end

Are there any little methods you have written that make you smile at their simplicity?