The Chuck Norris Problem in Ruby

TexasRanger.rb

$MESSAGE = gets.chomp

def make_zeros(count)
    zeros = ""
    count.times do 
        zeros += "0"
    end
    return zeros
end


def convert_unary(msg)
    
    bits = ""
    #STDERR.puts msg.length
    msg.length.times do |b|
        bits += msg[b].to_s.ord.to_s(2).rjust(7, "0")
    end
    
    STDERR.puts msg + " => " + bits + " => " + bits.size.to_s + " digits"
    result = ""
    
    k = 1

    last = bits[0]
    
    result = ( bits[0] == "0" ) ? "00 " : "0 "
    
    # changing start changes first count?
    for i in 1..bits.size do
        if bits[i] != last then
            
            result += make_zeros(k)

            k = 1
            last = bits[i]
            
            if bits[i] == "0" then
                result += " 00 "
            elsif bits[i] == "1" then
                result += " 0 "
            end
            
            # below doesn't work - nfiw - debug?
            #result = result + ( ( $bits[i] == 0) ? " 00 " : " 0 " )

        else

            k += 1
            
        end
        
    end
    
    result = result + make_zeros(k) 
    
    return result

end

text_msg = $MESSAGE

#binary_msg = $MESSAGE.ord.to_s(2)

unary_msg = convert_unary(text_msg)

puts unary_msg