From: dima <dejan.dimic@...>
Date: 2007-02-14T06:20:06+09:00
Subject: Re: quick newbie true/false/nil question

On Feb 13, 9:39 pm, Drew Olson <olso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jason Mayer wrote:
> > I ran across this line of code today, and it doesn't make sense to me.
>
> >   if ((klass = CommDispatcher.check_hash(path)) == nil)
>
> I don't know anything about CommDispatcher, but I'd assume you could
> rewrite the above code like so:
>
> if (!CommDispatcher.check_hash(path))
>
> The code above seems like a pretty bad code example.
>
> -Drew
>
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

The above code is certainly not a nice-looking one but that was not
the question.

I suppose that the puzzling part was that the variable klass will be
assigned with return value from CommDispatcher.check_hash(path) and
that that value could be nil.
It is true, if we presume that it is a possible return value from
CommDispatcher.check_hash method.

The assignment inside the if condition is not a good but it is a
common construction especially if you come form C++ world.
Ruby has far more interesting constructions but it all depends on a
context and mostly on programming style.

Generally this assignment inside the if condition should be avoided.

Dima