From: Travis Whitton <whitton@...>
Date: 2003-03-27T00:28:27+09:00
Subject: Re: What are the differences between Ruby's blocks and Python's lambdas?

A lambda is simply an anonymous function. Ruby has lambdas as well, but they're
commonly called proc objects.

sum = proc {|a,b| a + b}
sum.call(3, 4) # => 7

You could also write this:
sum = lambda {|a,b| a + b}
sum.call(3, 4) # => 7

A block allows you to inject code into a function/method at a certain point.

def countUp(n)
  1.upto(n) do |num|
    yield num
  end
end

countUp(5) {|myNum| puts n * n}
1
4
9
16
25

It may help to think of a block as a user-definable co-routine. You can also
convert a block into a proc object by prefixing the last argument of a method
with an ampersand.

def doSomething(&p)
  p.call
end

doSomething { puts "Hello" }
Hello

This can be helpful in a number of ways, and it's pretty much required to
inject code into a recursive function (i.e.,)

def dir_recurse(dirname, &action)
  Dir.open(dirname) do |dir|
    dir.each do |file|
      if test(?d, "#{dirname}/#{file}") and not test(?l, "#{dirname}/#{file}")
        next if file =~ /^\.\.?$/
        dir_recurse("#{dirname}/#{file}", &action)
      else
        action.call("#{dirname}/#{file}")
      end
    end
  end
end

# display each file in /sbin
dir_recurse("/sbin") {|file| puts file}
# show mtime of all files in /tmp
dir_recurse("/tmp") {|file| puts "#{file} #{File.mtime(file)}"}

Hope this helps,
Travis