|song| Not documented in Pickaxe Book

Ruby
1

Pickaxe Book (2nd Ed.), P. 49, 2nd example, line 3:

@songs.find {|song| title == song.name }

I  can't find a definition of the "|song|" construction in the book.

It is intuitively obvious that it is a variable, and a sort of
“catcher’s mitt” for the output of the method “@songs.find” – and acts
that way for all other example in the book that I can find.

What I _can't_ find, though, is a discussion of the construction -- or

did I miss it somewhere?

Sam Bassett

2

Sam’l B wrote:

– or did I miss it somewhere?

Sam Bassett

In the Pickaxe 2nd Ed., look at the top of page 76.

3

Nope – P. 76 has a discussion of gsub, in the context of “Backslash
Sequences in the Substitution”

4

Hi –

On Fri, 22 Dec 2006, Sam’l B wrote:

Nope – P. 76 has a discussion of gsub, in the context of “Backslash
Sequences in the Substitution”

Look in the middle of page 22.

David

5

That is a parameter passed to a block. It allows the method that
yielded to the block to pass information into the block, which in this
case is a song title (I’m guessing?).

Think of it (sort of) as the method yielding to the block feeding it a
parameter like you would a method call: a value is passed in from the
caller and stored in a local instance to be used in the block.

–Jeremy

6

Giles B. wrote:

The online version of the first edition of Pickaxe has it here:

http://www.rubycentral.com/book/intro.html

Scroll down to “Blocks and Iterators.” It’s about 2/3rds down the page.

Here’s an URL with an anchor link, for the especially lazy:
http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/language.html#blocksclosuresandprocobjects

Note the mention of the rules of parallel assignment, and click the
link. You’ll get more info than you ever wanted to know.

Or, at least, should have wanted to know. With irb and Test::Unit, who
needs to remember these details?

Devin

7

The online version of the first edition of Pickaxe has it here:

http://www.rubycentral.com/book/intro.html

Scroll down to “Blocks and Iterators.” It’s about 2/3rds down the page.

8

Jeremy McAnally wrote:

That is a parameter passed to a block. It allows the method that
yielded to the block to pass information into the block, which in this
case is a song title (I’m guessing?).

Think of it (sort of) as the method yielding to the block feeding it a
parameter like you would a method call: a value is passed in from the
caller and stored in a local instance to be used in the block.

That's what I had figured out intuitively -- it catches whatever the

method on the left spits out.

Sam’l

9

[email protected] wrote:

David

Got it!  Thanks!
10

or did I miss it somewhere?

Sam Bassett

Why, it’s a chute, of course:
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/chapter-3.html (Section: Block
Arguments)

:wink:

(Definitely, my all-time favorite intro-to-a-programming-language text.)

Richard W. Norton

11

Devin M. wrote:

Note the mention of the rules of parallel assignment, and click the
link. You’ll get more info than you ever wanted to know.

Or, at least, should have wanted to know. With irb and Test::Unit, who
needs to remember these details?

Documentation Nazis and other excessively literal folk,

Sam’l B.