From: Jeremy Tregunna <jtregunna@...>
Date: 2006-07-27T17:19:00+09:00
Subject: Re: ||= in an expression


On 27-Jul-06, at 4:10 AM, rejoc wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I new to Ruby and curious about this language I do use (yeet).
>
> I was browsing through some libraries/modules and I found a line  
> looking like
>
> a[:i] ||= "a string"
>
> I could not find this syntax in any manual online (and googling "|| 
> =" is not of much help :-( )
>
> Can anyone tell me what it means

it will return the value for a[:i] if a value exists, if not, it will  
set a[:i] to the value "a string".

--
Jeremy Tregunna
jtregunna@blurgle.ca


"One serious obstacle to the adoption of good programming languages  
is the notion that everything has to be sacrificed for speed. In  
computer languages as in life, speed kills." -- Mike Vanier