From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2005-11-19T05:23:53+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby's weird operators (||=)

mark wrote:
> Hi,
> Is there an explanation somewhere of all the weird operators in ruby
> such as ||= and exactly what they do?
> Apologies if this is a faq but I'm unable to google anything.
> 

Operators of that form are not methods or primitives. This

x ||= 3

is equivalent to

x = x || 3

The r.h.s. has value 3 if x is undefined or nil or false.

-- 
      vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407