For when you need to name things, but not worry about whether or not those names are already taken.

Originally developed for Simulmedia.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

# update with the version of your choice
gem 'nameq'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install nameq

Build a pool of regular text strings. Each time you take an item from the pool, the pool will take note.

pool = NameQ::TextPool.new(['Kevin', 'Lynne', 'You', 'You (1)'])

pool.take('Someone Else')
# => "Someone Else"

pool.take('Kevin')
# => "Kevin (1)"

pool.take('You')
# => "You (2)"

pool.take('Kevin')
# => "Kevin (2)"

pool.take('Someone Else')
# => "Someone Else (1)"

Or point to a directory. In addition to the take behavior mentioned in the TextPool, new entries in the specified directory will be considered on each pool operation.

pool = NameQ::Directory.new('/tmp/nameq')

pool.take('not-a-file')
# => 'not-a-file'

pool.take('Rakefile')
# => 'Rakefile (1)'

Either type of pool can be treated case-insensitively:

NameQ::Directory.new('/tmp/nameq', case_sensitive: false)

Please submit an issue. We'll figure out how to get you up and running with NameQ as smoothly as possible.