From: Russell Me <russ@...>
Date: 2008-02-08T05:56:25+09:00
Subject: Re: info on block arguments

tho_mica_l wrote:
>> I think of a block as Cookiemonster from Sesame street. When you throw
>> something at him, he will name it "cookie" and then eat it. In this case
>> you throw each element of kitty_toys, the block will call them all "toy"
>> and process them.
> 
> Unfortunately, my knowledge of Sesame Street is rather limited. But I
> think you're forgetting something. I'm quite sure there is something
> or someone sitting between you and the Cookiemonster, let's call it/
> him/her Sorty. Sorty takes all the kitty_toys from you and hands one
> toy after the other over to the Cookiemonster. So the Cookiemonster
> doesn't get them all at once but only one at a time. That's because it
> is a well educated Cookiemonster that doesn't eat two cookies at a
> time. Sorty then takes the toys back from the Cookiemonster and hands
> them over to Mrs. Each.
> 
> Nice analogy.

Thank you both for your help. it's making more sense but i imagine it 
should make total sense to me, no?

Still not 100% though about it and I certainly hope this isn't a preview 
of things to come. Things have been going well until i hit this simple 
roadblock of understanding.

>>>kitty_toys.sort_by { |toy| toy[:shape] }.each do |toy|
>>> puts "Blixy has a #{ toy[:shape] } made of #{ toy[:fabric] }"
>>> end

ok, so i see that a sort is being performed on kitty toys with 
"kitty_toys.sort_by". but what's the next bit about? namely: { |toy| 
toy[:shape] }.each do |toy|    I see that the sort is based on the shape 
from toy[:shape] but how? and what is the "|toy|" before it doing? and 
then i assume that the .each means do it for all the items, right? and 
then... for each toy, output the puts bit? (which then get's sorted by 
the sort_by)?

Sorry to be a bother with something so trivial.



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