ruby - conditional against array

[downtroden]

so let's say i have an array...
["pdf", "doc", "jpg", "tif", "gif"]

and i have a VALUE
"pdf"

how would i do something like

if VALUE equals any element in ARRAY
  do something
end

is this even possible this easily OR do i have to loop through the array testing the value each time? like so

ARRAY.each do |array|
  if array.value == VALUE
    do something
  end 
end

[ReggieB]

The Array method you want is include? (question mark is part of the method name).

file_extensions = ["pdf", "doc", "jpg", "tif", "gif"]
if file_extensions.include?("pdf")  
  #do stuff
end

BTW, Ruby documentation can be found here:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/

Very useful for finding methods of this type.