Iterating Over Strings

Part of the Fundamentals section of Coddy's Ruby journey — lesson 67 of 88.

Just like arrays, strings in Ruby can be iterated over character by character. The each_char method lets you process every character in a string individually.

Here's how it works:

word = "Ruby"

word.each_char do |char|
  puts char
end

This outputs each character on a separate line: R, u, b, y. The block variable char holds one character at a time as the iterator moves through the string.

If you need both the character and its position, use each_char.with_index:

word = "Hi"

word.each_char.with_index do |char, index|
  puts "#{index}: #{char}"
end

This outputs:

0: H
1: i

Another useful method is chars, which converts a string into an array of its characters. This lets you use all the array methods you've already learned:

letters = "abc".chars
puts letters  # Outputs: a, b, c

These methods are helpful when you need to analyze text, count specific characters, or transform strings character by character.

Challenge

Easy

Read a single line of input containing a string (e.g., hello).

Use each_char.with_index to iterate through the string and print each character along with its position. Each line should follow this format: Position 0: h

After printing all characters with their positions, print the total number of characters in the string on a new line in this format: Total characters: 5

For example, if the input is hello, the output should be:

Position 0: h
Position 1: e
Position 2: l
Position 3: l
Position 4: o
Total characters: 5

If the input is Ruby, the output should be:

Position 0: R
Position 1: u
Position 2: b
Position 3: y
Total characters: 4

If the input is code, the output should be:

Position 0: c
Position 1: o
Position 2: d
Position 3: e
Total characters: 4

If the input is A, the output should be:

Position 0: A
Total characters: 1

Cheat sheet

Use each_char to iterate over each character in a string:

word = "Ruby"

word.each_char do |char|
  puts char
end

Use each_char.with_index to access both the character and its position:

word = "Hi"

word.each_char.with_index do |char, index|
  puts "#{index}: #{char}"
end

Use chars to convert a string into an array of characters:

letters = "abc".chars
puts letters  # Outputs: a, b, c

Try it yourself

# Read input
str = gets.chomp

# TODO: Write your code below
# Use each_char.with_index to iterate through the string
# Print each character with its position in format: Position X: char


# Print the total number of characters in format: Total characters: X