My entry is simple, and not very complicated. At first I was thinking  
of make it much more complicated and using the abbrev to get human  
readable entries for and abbreviated version
of the title. But that seemed to complicated things more then help.  
So, I just went for a simple algorithm. My solution basically  
consistest of taking a simple truncation of the file name, then if  
that is already taken, going to the end and shifting the ellipsis to  
the left while reveling more of the last word, till a the title does  
not match anymore. There is a very large possibility of getting an  
infinite loop. And I have not tested it on many strings. Also,  
another flaw is that if two string are identical but smaller then the  
value sent to the function, it will return both string untouched.  
Since it does not touch any string smaller or equal to the length  
passed to it.

Gautam.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -w
#  Suggestion:  A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the problem  
helps everyone
#  on Ruby Talk follow the discussion.  Please reply to the original  
quiz message,
#  if you can.
#
#  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
#
#  by Ryan Williams
#
#  I use Eclipse (with RadRails!) I have a bunch of files open in  
tabs. Once enough
#  files are open, Eclipse starts to truncate the names so that  
everything fits.
#  It truncates them from the right, which means that pretty soon I'm  
left unable
#  to tell which tab is "users_controller.rb" and which is
#  "users_controller_test.rb", because they're both truncated to
#  "users_control...".
#
#  The quiz would be to develop an abbrev-like module that shortens a  
set of
#  strings so that they are all within a specified length, and all  
unique.  You
#  shorten the strings by replacing a sequence of characters with an  
ellipsis
#  character [U+2026].  If you want it to be ascii-only, use three  
periods instead,
#  but keep in mind that then you can only replace blocks of four or  
more
#  characters.
#
#  It might look like this in operation:
#
#    ['users_controller', 'users_controller_test',
#     'account_controller', 'account_controller_test',
#     'bacon'].compress(10)
#    => ['users_c...', 'use...test', 'account...', 'acc...test',  
'bacon']
#
#  There's a lot of leeway to vary the algorithm for selecting which  
characters to
#  crop, so extra points go to schemes that yield more readable results.
#
#  This code is released under the GPL.

require 'Abbrev'
module  GDCompress
   def compress (size)
     usedNameHash = Hash.new
     compressedTitleNames = Array.new
     for tabTitle in self
       newTabTitle = "" # start with empty string.
       if tabTitle.length > size
           caseValue = 0
           loop do
             newTabTitle = tabTitle[0,size-(1+caseValue)] + " +  
tabTitle[-caseValue,caseValue]
             #print "\t#{newTabTitle} is the new tabTitleTitle for # 
{tabTitle}\n"
             caseValue = caseValue + 3
             break unless usedNameHash[newTabTitle]
           end
       else
         newTabTitle = tabTitle
       end
       usedNameHash[newTabTitle] = tabTitle
       compressedTitleNames[compressedTitleNames.length] = newTabTitle
     end
     compressedTitleNames
   end
end

class Array
   include GDCompress
   extend  GDCompress
end

print ['users_controller', 'users_controller_test',
      'account_controller', 'account_controller_test',
      'bacon'].compress(10)

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
---------------------------------------------------

On Jun 16, 2006, at 5:33 AM, Ruby Quiz wrote:

> The three rules of Ruby Quiz:
>
> 1.  Please do not post any solutions or spoiler discussion for this  
> quiz until
> 48 hours have passed from the time on this message.
>
> 2.  Support Ruby Quiz by submitting ideas as often as you can:
>
> http://www.rubyquiz.com/
>
> 3.  Enjoy!
>
> Suggestion:  A [QUIZ] in the subject of emails about the problem  
> helps everyone
> on Ruby Talk follow the discussion.  Please reply to the original  
> quiz message,
> if you can.
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
> by Ryan Williams
>
> I use Eclipse (with RadRails!) I have a bunch of files open in  
> tabs. Once enough
> files are open, Eclipse starts to truncate the names so that  
> everything fits.
> It truncates them from the right, which means that pretty soon I'm  
> left unable
> to tell which tab is "users_controller.rb" and which is
> "users_controller_test.rb", because they're both truncated to
> "users_control...".
>
> The quiz would be to develop an abbrev-like module that shortens a  
> set of
> strings so that they are all within a specified length, and all  
> unique.  You
> shorten the strings by replacing a sequence of characters with an  
> ellipsis
> character [U+2026].  If you want it to be ascii-only, use three  
> periods instead,
> but keep in mind that then you can only replace blocks of four or more
> characters.
>
> It might look like this in operation:
>
>   ['users_controller', 'users_controller_test',
>    'account_controller', 'account_controller_test',
>    'bacon'].compress(10)
>   => ['users_c...', 'use...test', 'account...', 'acc...test', 'bacon']
>
> There's a lot of leeway to vary the algorithm for selecting which  
> characters to
> crop, so extra points go to schemes that yield more readable results.
>