From: Markus Echterhoff <Tam@...>
Date: 2007-08-12T21:00:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Bug or bad documentation for Array.insert()

On Thursday 09 August 2007 19:55:23 Daniel Berger wrote:
> Nope, the docs show that the second argument is optional. As it stands
> now there are a few methods like this scattered throughout Ruby where
> you can end up with what amounts to a no-op in certain situations,
> e.g. File.join with no arguments.
>
> Not that I necessarily agree with the current semantics, but it is
> documented properly. It does require that you understand "obj..." to
> mean "0 or more".
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan

Thanks, when I read the "obj..." as you say it's clear.


On Thursday 09 August 2007 21:15:43 Florian Frank wrote:
> I think the semantics are just fine. Consider this case:
>
> b = [] # maybe a result from some other method
> a.insert 23, *b
>
> I wouldn't want an exception thrown here. It would make it necessary to
> check for b's emptiness before every call to Array#insert. If people
> forget the check, it might cause an error when the impossible occurs
> anyway.

I think this is also true. I like errors thrown on everything I didn't expect. 
I just hope this is a constant behavior and not changing from method to 
method, so that I can expect it and relax without argument checking.