How can you "explode" an array in Ruby?

Question

I'd like to "explode" an array in Ruby in order to do a fast variable assignment i.e.

a, b = ['first_var', 'second_var']

Is this possible? I've looked through the array docs and can't find anything that seems to offer this but it seems Rubyish...

The code you've written should work exactly as you've written it. What exactly are you looking for? What is it you think is wrong with the code you've posted? — user229044
– user229044 ♦, Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 16:30
Not sure what you're asking; the snippet you wrote works as-is. — Dave Newton
– Dave Newton, Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 16:30
Ahh, not quite sure why that passed me by. Nice to see I've got an intuitive grasp of the language though — Peter Nixey
– Peter Nixey, Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 16:37

Michael Kohl · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-14 16:34:41Z

4

This works as you would expect. Note that you can use * to slurp up extra right hand side elements, whereas extra elements on the left hand side will be set to nil:

>> range = *1..10 #=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>> a, b = range #=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>> [a, b] #=> [1, 2]
>> a, *b = range #=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>> b #=> [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
>> a, b, c = 1,2 #=> [1, 2]
>> c #=> nil

answered Dec 14, 2011 at 16:34

Michael Kohl

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