From: Julian 'Julik' Tarkhanov <listbox@...>
Date: 2006-07-20T20:16:54+09:00
Subject: Re: return statement where it is usefull ?


On 20-jul-2006, at 10:40, Une b�vue wrote:

> i've the habit (from java ;-)) to put a return statement in a method
> like that :
>
>   def get_server_index(server)
>     if self.servers.include?(server)
>       return self.servers.index(server)
>     end
>     return -1
>   end
>
> in that case, is it usefull ? (i think not)

Ruby implicitly returns from the last expression in the method, but  
if it's inside a condition
it might not return. For instance:

def foo
  case bar
    when "x"
       1
    when "y"
       2
    else
       3
  end
end

In this case it will return 1, 2 or 3 implicitly.

As for your method, why not use a conditional assignment? Array#index  
returns nil when the element is not in the
array, so you can get a nil and suppress it with -1.

def get_server_index(server)
  self.servers.index(server) || -1
end