From: eliben@...
Date: 2006-03-11T16:48:45+09:00
Subject: named method arguments with defaults

Hello all,

What is the current idiomatic approach to pass named arguments to a
method in Ruby ?

In Perl, I can do:

sub method
{
  # first the defaults are specified, then @_ is appended and overrides
  # the defaults, using Perl's array-folding-into-hash feature
  #
  my %args = ("size" => 45,
                      "length" => 12,
                      @_);

  my $the_size = $args{"size"};
}

# now, a call: 44 will override the default size 45, but length will
remain 12
#
method("size" => 44);

I'm sure Ruby has a nearly similar approach to achieve this, I just not
skilled enough (yet) to know how. Please advise.

Thanks in advance
Eli