From: Jules Jacobs <devlists-ruby-talk@...>
Date: 2006-03-11T19:38:32+09:00
Subject: Re: named method arguments with defaults

Language support for named arguments will be in Ruby 2.0 (hopefully :P)

On Saturday, March 11, 2006, at 6:48 PM,  wrote:
>
>Jules Jacobs wrote:
>> You can use merge:
>>
>> def a_method(*options)
>>   options = {:size => 45, :length => 12}.merge(options)
>>
>>   # do stuff
>> end
>>
>> a_method(:size => 44)
>>
>> *should* work.
>>
>
>This works when I remove the asterisk from the (*options).
>Makes sense, I guess, since when I call:
>
>a_method(:size => 21, :weight => 22)
>
>With the asterisk specified, the arguments are folded into an array,
>and merge can't take an array as an argument when called on a Hash.
>Without the asterisk, Ruby's "special features" takes the arguments I
>passed to a_method as a Hash, since nothing came after the last x => y
>assignment, and then merge works.
>
>Did I decipher this correctly ?
>
>In any case, your proposal (without the asterisk) works nicely. In the
>1st edition of "Programming Ruby" the authors noted that by Ruby 1.8,
>named arguments will be built into the language. I assume this hasn't
>happened yet ?
>
>Thanks
>Eli
>
>


Jules


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