From: nobu.nokada@...
Date: 2005-04-25T08:04:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Suggestion: Hash.remove

Hi,

At Mon, 25 Apr 2005 04:44:32 +0900,
Florian Gro� wrote in [ruby-talk:139655]:
> >>>>>Perhaps you could instead change your proposal to make .delete() accept
> >>>>>multiple keys?
> >>>
> >>>What will be returned?
> >>
> >>An Array of the deleted values?
> > 
> > It's not compatible obviously.  Another method Hash#remove (and
> > Array#remove also?) sounds better, I guess.
> 
> Oh, I don't think so. There is other methods which also return an Array 
> or one value depending on their arguments. Array#last comes to mind.

It differs from this.

     array.last     =>  obj or nil
     array.last(n)  =>  an_array

Array#last doesn't allow arbitrary number arguments, but just 0
or 1.

Consider:

  array = [...]
  deleted = hash.delete(*array)

`deleted' will be an element if array's size equals 1, or an
array otherwise.  It sounds like a pitfall.

-- 
Nobu Nakada