5 Ruby Tips You Probably Don’t Know

5 Ruby Tips You Probably Don’t Know

In this article we’re going to explore the following topics:

Array
Hash#default_proc
HEREDOC

Assigning the rest of an Array to a variable

When destructuring an array , you can unpack and assign the remaining part of it to a variable using the rest pattern

Array destructuring in block arguments

It’s possible to use the Array Destructuring mechanism in ruby blocks

produces

key1: value1
key2: value2
key3: value3
key4: value4

Here, each sub-array is destructured and the first and second entry values are assigned to the key and value block arguments.

Hash#default_proc as default value

A Hash.new can take a block that will be used to set the default value of a key

But what if we want that all this default value is propagated through all the entries and subentries of a hash ?

It’s possible to propagate the default block passed as argument of the Hash.new method to all the sub-entries of the freshly returned hash.

To do so we can use the Hash#default_proc method that contains the block passed as argument of the Hash.new method

Here, a new hash that takes a block as argument — which is used to define the default value of a new entry — is assigned to the layers variable.

When layers[:layer_1] is called without an explicit assignment, then the block passed as argument of the layers hash is executed.

This block is executed as following

In effect, the default_proc executes the block passed as parameter of the layers hash.

It’s same for the layers[:layer_1][:layer_2] .

And then the layers[:layer_1][:layer_2][:layer_3] contains an assigned value. So the default_proc method is not called.

The default_proc method of the layers hash is propagated as default value of any new entries and sub-entries of this hash.

Inception…

HEREDOC and method chaining

As an HEREDOC is an multiple line String syntactic sugar, then it’s possible to chain methods on it.

In this example, we remove the trailing spaces and \n from an SQL query

Unary operators for non-numeric objects

It’s possible to implement unary operators to an object by defining the -@ and +@ methods within the class declaration

produces

false
true

Voilà!