From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2005-08-27T03:22:36+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby quiz question '*' on the initialize parameters

Hi --

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005, Gaston Garcia wrote:

> Hi everyone:
>
> On the ruby quiz called: Banned Words (#9), I'm looking at the class posted
> there and I came up with something I had never seen before (probably because
> I'm really new to Ruby)
>
> class LanguageFilter
> def initialize( *banned_words )
> @banned_words = banned_words.flatten.sort
> @clean_calls = 0
> end
>
> end
>
> I had never seen this:
>
> def initialize(*banned_words)
>
> what does that * do? Does it mean I can send as many parameters as I want?

Yes -- it creates an array out of whatever comes in, zero or more of
them.  You can also put it at the end of a composite arglist:

   class C
     def initialize(a,b,*c)
   end

   C.new(1,2,3,4,5)   # a == 1, b == 2, c == [3,4,5]


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net