> What I then wanted to do was pull out items 4 and 8 (the size and
> filename) into a new two-element array. I half expected to be able to do
> that via:
> 
>    data = listing[[4, 8]]
> 
> but that doesn't work.
> 
> 
irb(main):001:0> x = ['A','B','C','D'] => ["A", "B", "C", "D"]
irb(main):002:0> y = x[0],x[1]
=> ["A", "B"]
irb(main):003:0> p y
["A", "B"]
=> nil