From: lisa.ugray@...
Date: 2019-04-02T16:11:52+00:00
Subject: [ruby-core:92111] [Ruby trunk Feature#13683] Add strict	Enumerable#single

Issue #13683 has been updated by lugray (Lisa Ugray).


I was pointed here after sharing the following code with my team mates.  I really like the idea, and find I often reach for it.  What about the name `only`?
``` ruby
module Enumerable
  def only
    only!
  rescue IndexError
    nil
  end

  def only!
    raise(IndexError, "Count (#{count}) is not 1") if count != 1
    first
  end
end
```


----------------------------------------
Feature #13683: Add strict Enumerable#single
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/13683#change-77438

* Author: dnagir (Dmytrii Nagirniak)
* Status: Feedback
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: 
* Target version: 
----------------------------------------
### Summary

This is inspired by other languages and frameworks, such as LINQ's [Single](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb155325%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) (pardon MSDN reference), which has very big distinction between `first` and `single` element of a
collection.

- `first` normally returns the top element, and the developer assumes
  there could be many;
- `single` returns one and only one element, and it is an error if there
  are none or more than one.

We, in Ruby world, very often write `fetch_by('something').first`
assuming there's only one element that can be returned there.

But in majority of the cases, we really want a `single` element.

The problems with using `first` in this case:

- developer needs to explicitly double check the result isn't `nil`
- in case of corrupted data (more than one item returned), it will never
  be noticed

`Enumerable#single` addresses those problems in a very strong and
specific way that may save the world by simply switching from `first` to
`single`.

### Other information

- we may come with a better internal implementation (than `self.map`)
- better name could be used, maybe `only` is better, or a bang version?
- re-consider the "block" implementation in favour of a separate method (`single!`, `single_or { 'default' }`)


The original implementation is on the ActiveSupport https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/26206
But it was suggested to discuss the possibility of adding it to Ruby which would be amazing.



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