Ruby tailcall optimizes?

Ruby
1

Hmm this was a nice surprise. it seems Ruby does tailcall-
optimization? One up for Ruby on Python.

Is there a way to have optional arguments in Ruby? Then I could make
it one function instead of wrapping them.

irb(main):011:0> fact(12000)
fact(12000)
1201858406751094813215537862229…
irb(main):012:0> fac(12000)
fac(12000)
SystemStackError: stack level too deep
from c:/ruby/Progs/blandat/learn.rb:34:in fac' from c:/ruby/Progs/blandat/learn.rb:34:infac’
from (irb):12
irb(main):013:0>

def fact(n)
def f(n, acc)
if n > 0
then f(n-1, n*acc)
else acc
end
end
f(n, 1)
end

def fac(n)
if n > 0
then n * fac(n-1)
else 1
end
end

2

wow this was nice and elegant and i can even call it with fac 5 withou
parenthesis. .

def fac(n, acc=1)
if n > 0
then fac(n-1, n*acc)
else acc
end
end

3

2008/9/8 cnb [email protected]:

Hmm this was a nice surprise. it seems Ruby does tailcall-
optimization?

It doesn’t.

13:51:03 ~$ ruby -e ‘def t(a)a>0?t(a-1):a;end;t 1_000_000’
-e:1:in t': stack level too deep (SystemStackError) from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1
13:51:39 ~$ ruby19 -e ‘def t(a)a>0?t(a-1):a;end;t 1_000_000’
-e:1:in t': stack level too deep (SystemStackError) from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1:in t' from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1:in t' from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1:in t' from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1:in t' ... 7264 levels... from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1:in t' from -e:1:in t’
from -e:1:in `’

Is there a way to have optional arguments in Ruby?

Did you read the documentation?

robert