Hi,
why is
a = Something.new
b = Something.new
a and b
=> b
?
I would expect it to return true.
Same thing goes for the && operator
Regards
Philip
Philip Müller wrote:
a and b
=> b
?
I would expect it to return true.
The pseudo-code for and basically looks like this:
a and b =
if a: b
else: a
This means that if a or b evaluate to a something that counts as false,
then
the whole expression will also evaluate to something that counts as
false.
And if neither of them do, then the whole expression will evaluate to
something that counts as true. So for if-conditions etc. the expression
will
work as expected.
The reason that it returns a/b and not true/false is that
a) there are very few cases where you need the value to be an explicit
boolean
b) there are quite a few cases where returning a/b is more meaningful
and/or
useful than just returning true/false (though that’s more the case for
“or”
than “end”. Example: foo = ARGV[0] or default_value).
HTH,
Sebastian
On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:25:37 +0200, Sebastian H.
[email protected] wrote:
Example: foo = ARGV[0] or default_value).
Thanks,
ruby can be different to understand sometimes for someone coming from
c/c++.
Sebastian H. wrote:
foo = ARGV[0] or default_value
Be careful. “or” has low precedence!
irb(main):001:0> default_value = 12
=> 12
irb(main):002:0> foo = ARGV[0] or default_value
=> 12
irb(main):003:0> foo
=> nil
irb(main):004:0> foo = ARGV[0] || default_value
=> 12
irb(main):005:0> foo
=> 12
On 17.04.2009 20:47, Philip Müller wrote:
On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:25:37 +0200, Sebastian H.
[email protected] wrote:Example: foo = ARGV[0] or default_value).
Thanks,
ruby can be different to understand sometimes for someone coming from
c/c++.
Yes, maybe. But if you get the hang of it you will see how useful this
is. Actually what the expression returns is a value which is “true”
equivalent, i.e. you can do things like
if a && b
puts “both set”
end
But also, and this is where the fact is handy that one of the values is
returned (the first non false and non nil in this case):
x = a || b
In C/C++ you might have to do something like
x = a == NULL ? b : a;
or maybe just
x = a ? a : b;
(My C has become a bit rusty.)
Kind regards
robert