Hey all I read in Agile Web Development with Rails that you can set a value like this, @my_time ||= Time.now What does the operator mean, and what is the difference between using ||= and = ? -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Nima wrote:> What does the operator mean, and what is the difference between using > ||= and = ?Much like ''x += 1'' is a shortcut for ''x = x + 1'', ''x ||= 1'' is a shortcut for ''x = x || 1''. The significance of this is that the || method doesn''t simply return a boolean value; it checks the first argument, returns it if it evaluates to ''true'' (i.e. is something other than false or nil), and otherwise returns the second argument. So it''s commonly used as a shortcut for an if/then statement, checking if the first argument is nil (or false). So the following are all equivalent: if @account @account else Account.find(session[:account_id]) end is the same as: @account = @account || Account.find(session[:account_id]) is the same as: @account ||= Account.find(session[:account_id]) Hope this helps! -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Definitely does, thanks Chris! -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
> I read in Agile Web Development with Rails that you can set a value like > this, > @my_time ||= Time.now > > What does the operator mean, and what is the difference between using > ||= and = ?foo = 5 # foo now equals 5 foo ||= 6 # foo still equals 5 ||= is saying if the left hand side is nil, then set the left hand side to the right hand side, otherwise just leave well enough alone. -philip --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Hi Nima, On 17 Jan 2007, at 10.16 pm, Nima wrote:> > What does the operator mean, and what is the difference between using > ||= and = ?||= is called the conditional assignment. It is essentially syntactic sugar for (i.e. a shorter way of writing): @my_time = @my_time || Time.now The way this works is based on the behaviour of the OR (||) part of the assignment, and the general behaviour of statements in Ruby: statements always return something. So, let''s look at the following statement: true || false if you try this in irb you''ll see the following: >> true || false => true irb tells us that Ruby returns false for the expression true || false. If we remember our boolean logic, we know this is the right answer. However, where things start to get tricky is something like this: >> true || "cheese" => true >> false || "cheese" => "cheese" >> "cheese" || "beef" => "cheese" Notice how Ruby returns the value "cheese" in the second example above, and the first value in the third example (Ruby shortcuts the or, and knowing that true or anything is true, just returns the first value). Now, as Ruby isn''t statically typed, it lets us put anything on either side of the || operator. Now, the way it turns a standard object into true or false in order to evaluate the logic is as follows: if the object is nil, or false, then it is represented as false. if the object has any other value whatsoever, then it is represented as true. So, knowing this, we can see how Ruby sees the string "cheese" as being true. Now, returning back to the original question, we can see that: @answer = false || "cheese" would assign the value of "cheese" to answer. Now, if we wrote: @answer = @answer || "cheese" then we get two possible behaviours: 1) if @answer has a value, then @answer is set to that value (basically this doesn''t do anything) 2) if @answer doesn''t exist, it is nil, which means that @answer will be set to "cheese" following the behaviour we''ve just seen. Hope this helps, Sam Aaron --- http://sam.aaron.name --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---