From: Philip Mak <pmak@...>
Date: 2002-07-02T05:29:37+09:00
Subject: Getting CGI arguments as scalars

cgi = CGI.new
year = cgi['year'] => ['2002']

In the CGI module, all the arguments are given as arrays instead of
scalars (presumably to support the case where the HTML page had
multiple <INPUT> tags of the same name).

How can I get it as a scalar, though? Right now I'm using:

year ,= cgi['year']

Is this a safe syntax to use (i.e. will it be valid in future versions
of Ruby)? It seems to be an abuse of the comma notation (I would think
that the comma is meant to *separate* lvalues).