[ruby-core:120482] [Ruby master Feature#20770] A *new* pipe operator proposal

Issue #20770 has been updated by rubyFeedback (robert heiler).


Personally I do not think I would need this feature (I share mame's opinion here), but what has not yet been pointed out is the language streem by matz (https://github.com/matz/streem). Now, streem is not ruby and matz has not pushed streem for a while, but I believe the basic gist (idea) for streem is one based around using pipes as a filter for data. This may not mean much in regards to ruby and the issue here, and I think one small issue is that in ruby we kind of do data-filtering via .method calls on objects, so |> may be somewhat orthogonal to this (or, at the least some suggestions of what |> should do exactly in ruby), but I think if we include streem's goals into consideration then matz may be open to suggestions for |> being useful in one way or another. I actually like |>, oddly enough, although as mame stated, I think there need to be some key reasons for using |> other than looking pretty.

Magro wrote:

> The pipe operator provides a predictable and explicit structure

While I like |>, I think any proposal to cover |> needs to have a good use case. Perhaps there could be a set of suggestions in regards to |> and matz and the ruby core team may select one that seems the best in itself and the least orthogonal. (I think Elixir's use cases are a bit different, in ruby I feel I can just use .methods such as .select or .reject, so as said I think that use case, as mame pointed out, may be already covered, and for |> it may be better to have some key advantages over classical .method chaining.)

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Feature #20770: A *new* pipe operator proposal
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20770#change-111266

* Author: AlexandreMagro (Alexandre Magro)
* Status: Open
----------------------------------------
Hello,

This is my first contribution here. I have seen previous discussions around introducing a pipe operator, but it seems the community didn't reach a consensus. I would like to revisit this idea with a simpler approach, more of a syntactic sugar that aligns with how other languages implement the pipe operator, but without making significant changes to Ruby's syntax.

Currently, we often write code like this:

```ruby
value = half(square(add(value, 3)))
```

We can achieve the same result using the `then` method:

```ruby
value = value.then { add(_1, 3) }.then { square(_1) }.then { half(_1) }
```

While `then` helps with readability, we can simplify it further using the proposed pipe operator:

```ruby
value = add(value, 3) |> square(_1) |> half(_1)
```

Moreover, with the upcoming `it` feature in Ruby 3.4 (#18980), the code could look even cleaner:

```ruby
value = add(value, 3) |> square(it) |> half(it)
```

This proposal uses the anonymous block argument `(_1)`, and with `it`, it simplifies the code without introducing complex syntax changes. It would allow us to achieve the same results as in other languages that support pipe operators, but in a way that feels natural to Ruby, using existing constructs like `then` underneath.

I believe this operator would enhance code readability and maintainability, especially in cases where multiple operations are chained together.

Thank you for considering this proposal!






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