Ruby idiom a ||= b means?

ratnavel · July 1, 2008, 6:34am

What does the ruby idiom a ||= b mean?

Thanks,
Ratnavel

ratnavel · July 1, 2008, 6:54am

On Jul 1, 2008, at 12:31 AM, Ratnavel P S wrote:

What does the ruby idiom a ||= b mean?

Thanks,
Ratnavel

-Rob

P.S. Please don’t ask the same question on both Rails and Ruby lists/
forums.

ratnavel · July 1, 2008, 11:08am

On Jul 1, 6:49 am, Rob B. [email protected] wrote:

On Jul 1, 2008, at 12:31 AM, Ratnavel P S wrote:

What does the ruby idiom a ||= b mean?

It is like:
a || a = b

In english, thats: If a is nil or false, then leave it, else assign a
= b.

Often used instead of code like this:

if a.nil? then
a = b
end

ratnavel · July 1, 2008, 12:47pm

Ratnavel P S wrote:

What does the ruby idiom a ||= b mean?

It’s commonly used to assign default values to things.
This idiom is also very common in Perl, which is presumably where it
came from.

ratnavel · July 3, 2008, 12:11am