Longest lines of file descending This is a challenge question from codeeval.com:




  Write a program which reads a file and prints to stdout the specified
  number of the longest lines that are sorted based on their length in
  descending order. Input sample:
  
  Your program should accept a path to a file as its first argument. The
  file contains multiple lines. The first line indicates the number of
  lines you should output, the other lines are of different length and
  are presented randomly. You may assume that the input file is
  formatted correctly and the number in the first line is a valid
  positive integer. 
  
  For Example:

2 
Hello World
CodeEval 
Quick Fox
A
San Francisco

  
  Output sample:
  
  Print out the longest lines limited by specified number and sorted by
  their length in descending order.
  
  For example:

San Francisco 
Hello World



I think my code is pretty readable.

lines = IO
  .readlines(ARGV.first)

puts lines
  .drop(1)
  .sort_by(&amp;:length)
  .last(lines.first.to_i)
  .reverse
Reading a file named on the command line is a common task.  I suggest making use of the ARGF to accomplish that.

Not all lines of the input are to be treated uniformly.  Since the first line is to be treated differently, I suggest defining lines to exclude it.

top_n, *lines = ARGF.to_a
puts lines.sort_by(&amp;:length).last(top_n.to_i).reverse