Double Pipe Symbols in Ruby Variable Assignment

Double Pipe Symbols in Ruby Variable Assignment?

It's a conditional assignment. From here:

 x = find_something() #=>nil
 x ||= "default"      #=>"default" : value of x will be replaced with "default", but only if x is nil or false
 x ||= "other"        #=>"default" : value of x is not replaced if it already is other than nil or false

What does ||= (or-equals) mean in Ruby?

This question has been discussed so often on the Ruby mailing-lists and Ruby blogs that there are now even threads on the Ruby mailing-list whose only purpose is to collect links to all the other threads on the Ruby mailing-list that discuss this issue.

Here's one: The definitive list of ||= (OR Equal) threads and pages

If you really want to know what is going on, take a look at Section 11.4.2.3 "Abbreviated assignments" of the Ruby Language Draft Specification.

As a first approximation,

a ||= b

is equivalent to

a || a = b

and not equivalent to

a = a || b

However, that is only a first approximation, especially if a is undefined. The semantics also differ depending on whether it is a simple variable assignment, a method assignment or an indexing assignment:

a    ||= b
a.c  ||= b
a[c] ||= b

are all treated differently.

What does ||= do in Ruby 1.9.2?

It assigns [] to params["user][:role_ids] if params["user][:role_ids] is nil or another falsy value...

Otherwise, it retains the original value of params["user][:role_ids]

Example

variable = nil

variable ||= "string"

puts variable # "string"

variable2 = "value"

variable2 ||= "string"

puts variable2 # "value"

What does ||= mean?

It is an assignment operator which means: or assign this value to a variable.

So if you did something like x ||= ythis meansx || x = y so if x is nil or false set x to be the value of y.

What does ||= mean?

Basically, a ||= b means assign b to a if a is null or undefined or false (i.e. false-ish value in ruby), it is similar to a = b unless a, except it will always evaluate to the final value of a (whereas a = b unless a would result in nil if a was true-ish).

What does the '||=' operator do in ruby?

what does || do? If you have a and b then a || b is true if and only if either a or b is true. It is the same with ||= this operator combines two operations '=' and '||'. So a ||= b is equivelent to c || c = b

EDIT: so in your context ENV['ENVIRONMENT'] ||= 'test' means that if ENV['ENVIRONMENT'] is not nil and not false it will preserve its value, otherwise it will become 'test' and after that the new value of ENV['ENVIRONMENT'] is assigned to RACK_ENV

What does the ||= operand stand for in ruby

It is the shorthand for a logical OR operation. It is equivalent to:

a || a = b

Note: The above code sample has been corrected to reflect the true (if unintuitive) behavior if expanding a ||= b. Thanks to the people who pointed that out for me. Here is the source

if a evaluates to true it will remain as is, otherwise b will be assigned to a. In ruby nil evaluates to false, so you can see how this is useful for lazy loading and default value assignment.

||=' operator in Ruby

It's an assignment operator for 'Conditional Assignment'

See here -> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ruby_Programming/Syntax/Operators

Conditional assignment:

 x = find_something() #=>nil
 x ||= "default"      #=>"default" : value of x will be replaced with "default", but only if x is nil or false
 x ||= "other"        #=>"default" : value of x is not replaced if it already is other than nil or false

Operator ||= is a shorthand form of the expression:

x = x || "default" 

EDIT:

After seeing OP's edit, the example is just an extension of this, meaning:

car = method_1 || method_2 || method_3 || method_4

Will assign the first non-nil or non-false return value of method_1, method_2, method_3, method_4 (in that order) to car or it'll retain its old value.

How can I disable a hotkey in GreaseMonkey while editing?

document.activeElement works for me in FF3 but the following also works

(function() {

var myActiveElement;
document.onkeypress = function(event) {
    if ((myActiveElement || document.activeElement || {}).tagName != 'INPUT')
        // do your magic
};
if (!document.activeElement) {
    var elements = document.getElementsByTagName('input');
    for(var i=0; i<elements.length; i++) {
        elements[i].addEventListener('focus',function() {
            myActiveElement = this;
        },false);
        elements[i].addEventListener('blur',function() {
            myActiveElement = null;
        },false);
    }
}

})();

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