From: Max Williams <toastkid.williams@...>
Date: 2009-07-23T18:50:29+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby "star".... what's it?

Mirko Viviani wrote:
> Sorry,
> Complete code was like this
> x,  *xs = *myarray
> 
> after executing, x is 1 and xs [2,3,4,5,6,6] ..... :o
> 
> 2009/7/23 Max Williams <toastkid.williams@gmail.com>

Ah, well there you go.  In ruby, you can assign multiple variables to 
multiple values simultaneously: effectively on the left side of the = 
you have a list of variables and on the right you have a list of values. 
If the sizes of the lists don't match up then any extra values are 
thrown away and any extra variables are set to nil.  eg


However, if you use the * on the rightmost variable, then any extra 
values get pulled into an array and that variable points to that array:

>> a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
=> [1, 2, 3]
>> puts a.inspect; puts b.inspect; puts c.inspect
1
2
3
=> nil
>> a, b, c = 1, 2
=> [1, 2]
>> puts a.inspect; puts b.inspect; puts c.inspect
1
2
nil
=> nil
>> a, b = 1, 2, 3
=> [1, 2, 3]
>> puts a.inspect; puts b.inspect
1
2
=> nil
>> a, *b = 1, 2, 3
=> [1, 2, 3]
>> puts a.inspect; puts b.inspect
1
[2, 3]

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