From: James Coglan <jcoglan@...>
Date: 2008-09-08T19:11:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Hash auto-true ({:a} == {:a => true})

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>
> Now I'm wondering what it would take to define a hash explode (sidenote:
> is that what * on *args is called? explode?). How would one go about
> defining something like {}args that explodes args into a
> true-for-value-less hash (even using the code you posted)? I'm not sure
> exactly how *args works internally, and it's pretty hard to find info
> about it, actually. Any idea what kind of method it is, and how would
> you define another one?



Far as I know, the *args is part of Ruby's syntax, it's not a method that
you can change. Even if you could change it, I've no idea which class the
method would be in. The best you can do is use *args to mean "the remaining
args" and pop the last one off if it's a hash.

You could add a method in Hash to set one value to many keys:

class Hash
  def set_many(value, *keys)
    keys.each { |key| self[key] = value }
  end
end

Then do the following:

def my_method(arg1, arg2, *args)
  options = (Hash === args.last) ? args.pop : {}
  options.set_many(true, *args)
  # ...
end

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