Ruby array subtraction without removing items more than once

Question

The canonical Array difference example in Ruby is:

[ 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5 ] - [ 1, 2, 4 ]  #=>  [ 3, 3, 5 ]

What\'s the best way to ge

Answer 1

class Array
  def subtract_once(b)
    h = b.inject({}) {|memo, v|
      memo[v] ||= 0; memo[v] += 1; memo
    }
    reject { |e| h.include?(e) && (h[e] -= 1) >= 0 }
  end
end

I believe this does what I want. Many thanks to @glebm