Correction site for:

1. On page page 7, top line, at the beginning of the line, there should be a linebreak after C:\ftp\rb>irb
   
   
2. The bigsort.pl script on page 150 of Ruby Programming for Medicine and Biology, has a few quirks. First, it assumes that the text file (to be sorted) is a DOS-style file with a two character (carriage-return,line-feed) linebreak. Also, it assumes that every line (in the file to be sorted) contains alphanumeric text.
   
   This slightly modified Ruby script will work in any type of text file and does not require text to appear on any lines of the file.

   #!/usr/local/bin/ruby
   text = File.open("terms.txt", "r")
   out = File.open("terms.put", "w")
   linearray = Array.new
   begin_position = 0
   text.each_line do
       |line|
       old_position = begin_position
       begin_position = text.pos
       line = line.chomp! + "          "
       linearray << line.slice(0..9) + old_position.to_s
   end
   linearray.sort!
   linearray.each do
     |value|
     seekplace = value.slice(10..20).to_i
     text.seek(seekplace, IO::SEEK_SET)
     out.puts(text.readline)
   end
   exit
   

   Thanks goes to Dr. Tim Rand, who spotted the error and sent me his own version of a fix on February 6, 2008.
   
   
3. On page 288, In the List title, the intended word is MEANINFUL, not MEANINGUL.
   
   
4. On page 290, in the middle of the third paragraph, the word nil shoud appear entirely in Courier font.

Contact the author by email.

Last modified: Feb 9, 2008