From: Phlip <phlip2005@...>
Date: 2008-02-05T05:48:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Expanding arrays in method calls - why the restriction?

mathew wrote:

> system('du', *opts, '/tmp')
> 
> which seems to me like a reasonable thing to want to do.

system('du', *[opts + '/tmp'])

In Ruby, never underestimate the power of the splat operator.

> Is there some technical reason why the * parameter has to be the last 
> one in the argument list, given that the array must be of finite size 
> anyway, and presumably it gets expanded out in the process so that the 
> receiver doesn't know an array was involved?

I can't think of a reason either - the splat does evaluate before the method 
call. Maybe it's just symmetry with the internal argument splat, which must 
cohabit with default values and &block, so it must come relatively last.

-- 
   Phlip