From: zenshade@...
Date: 2006-08-16T22:35:10+09:00
Subject: Question about a multiple assignment statement used in Rails

As I'm very much still a ruby newbie, I'm hoping someone can help me to
correctly parse the following statement generated by Rails scaffolding:

@category_pages, @categories = paginate :category, :per_page => 10

This statement occurs in the following context:

class CategoriesController < ApplicationController
.
.
.
  def list
    @category_pages, @categories = paginate :category, :per_page => 10
  end
.
.
.
end

Now, I know that paginate is a method of the ActionController class,
but is it being called with two arguments or one?  And if it is being
called with two arguments (:category, :per_page => 10), how is
multi-assignment working here?

To me, this looks like @category_pages will get the return value of the
paginate method, and @categories will be assigned the value nil.

Any advice on how to correctly understand this assignment statement
would be greatly appreciated.