This is one way to approach this:

c = -> x do $*.clear if x['if'] && x[0] != 'f' . y = x[0...x.index('for')] x = x[x.index('for')..-1] (x.insert(x.index(x.split[3]) + x.split[3].length, " do $* << #{y}") x.insert(x.length, "end; $*") eval(x) $*) elsif x['if'] && x[0] == 'f' (x.insert(x.index(x.split[3]) + x.split[3].length, " do $* << x") x.insert(x.length, "end; $*") eval(x) $*) elsif !x['if'] && x[0] != 'f' y = x[0...x.index('for')] x = x[x.index('for')..-1] (x.insert(x.index(x.split[3]) + x.split[3].length, " do $* << #{y}") x.insert(x.length, "end; $*") eval(x) $*) else eval(x.split[3]).to_a end end

so basically we are converting a string to proper ruby syntax for loop then we can use python syntax in a string to do:

c['for x in 1..10'] c['for x in 1..10 if x.even?'] c['x**2 for x in 1..10 if x.even?'] c['x**2 for x in 1..10'] # [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] # [2, 4, 6, 8, 10] # [4, 16, 36, 64, 100] # [1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100]

or if you don't like the way the string looks or having to use a lambda we could forego the attempt to mirror python syntax and do something like this: