From: Jim Cochrane <allergic-to-spam@...>
Date: 2006-11-26T06:15:07+09:00
Subject: Re: coding practise

On 2006-11-25, Vidar Hokstad <vidar.hokstad@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> sempsteen wrote:
>> 1-) What does "Hash#has_key?" actually do?
>> Why do we need such a method in spite of using the result of "Hash#[]"
>> method which will return nil for a non-present key.
>
> Because you won't know if a "nil" result from Hash#[] means that you
> tried to access a non-existing key or if you accessed a key where the
> _value_ is nil.
>

It also allows for good code readability - 'has_key?': It's pretty
obvious to, e.g., a reviewer what the code wants to do.


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