From: Jamis Buck <jgb3@...>
Date: 2003-12-12T07:49:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Simple issue giving problems

Brad wrote:

>a=1
>b=2
>
>def swapper(dest,src)
>   dest,src=src,dest
>end
>
>swapper(a,b)
>p [ a, b ]
>
>  
>

Well... given that the swap is only a one-liner, you really don't need 
to do the function call at all.  However, I understand there is a deeper 
issue here--sometimes you want to modify the parameters... What I 
usually do is just return the modified parameters,  like this:

   def swaper( dest, src )
       dest, src = src, dest
       return [ dest, src ]
   end

   a, b = swapper( a, b )
   p [ a, b ]

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu

ruby -h | ruby -e 'a=[];readlines.join.scan(/-(.)\[e|Kk(\S*)|le.l(..)e|#!(\S*)/) {|r| a << r.compact.first };puts "\n>#{a.join(%q/ /)}<\n\n"'