From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2008-03-27T01:25:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Simple Question

Hi --

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, pete wrote:

> Hi-
>
> This should be an easy one to answer...
>
> Is it possible to return an array from a function?

Yes. You can return any object.

irb is really good for answering questions like this:

irb(main):001:0> def return_array
irb(main):002:1>   [1,2,3]
irb(main):003:1> end
=> nil
irb(main):004:0> return_array
=> [1, 2, 3]

> def test(val1,val2)
>  myarr = Array.new
>  myarr = [val1,val2]

You're re-assigning to myarr, which means that the first value will be
discarded (unless it has another reference somewhere else (which it
doesn't in this case).

>  return myarr
> end

You could rewrite the above as:

   def test(val1, val2)
     [val1, val2]
   end

Just return what you want to return -- no need to dance around it :-)


David

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