From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-08-08T00:36:26+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:04332] Re: TABWTDI and Hash.new([])

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:04327] Re: TABWTDI and Hash.new([])"
    on 00/08/07, Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng <hgs@dmu.ac.uk> writes:

|> >      Hash.new{[]}
|> > 
|> > This means if the key is not found in the hash, evaluate given block
|> > and returns its value as default.  In this example, the block creates
|> > new array for each execution.
|> 
|> That's far more general - I like this a lot.

By the way, hash.fetch(key){[]} may be sufficient for the purpose.
This is available in 1.5 without any modification.

|I agree with those sentiments as well.  I wonder if this would be worth
|extending more gnerally, so user-created classes can use it?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Could you explain a bit more?

							matz.