Iterating a List with_index in Elixir

In Ruby you can get the index value when iterating over a list by calling the method each_with_index on the array object itself. This method makes the iterable object and its index available to you inside of a block, like so:

arr = ["one", "two", "three"]
arr.each_with_index do |number, index|
  # handle logic here
end

The way to handle this in Elixir is to use the Enum module which works with any enumerable data type in the Elixir language, including List. The Enum module has a function .with_index that can be used to get the index value for each item in the list on iteration. In practice that could look like:

    list = [Post.find(1), Post.find(2)]
    |> Enum.with_index
    |> Enum.filter(fn({post, index}) ->
      # handle logic here
    end)

Here we are piping the list to the Enum.with_index/2 and then piping the result of that to the Enum.filter/2 function. As demonstrated in the code above the iterable object and it’s index are available in the callback function of the filter function.