What Does +@ Mean as a Method in Ruby

What does +@ mean as a method in ruby

Ruby contains a few unary operators, including +, -, !, ~, & and *. As with other operators you can also redefine these. For ~ and ! you can simply just say def ~ and def ! as they don't have a binary counterpart (e.g. you cannot say a!b).

However for - and + there is both a unary, and a binary version (e.g. a+b and +a are both valid), so if you want to redefine the unary version you have to use def +@ and def -@.

Also note that there is a unary version of * and & as well, but they have special meanings. For * it is tied to splatting the array, and for & it is tied to converting the object to a proc, so if you want to use them you have to redefine to_a and to_proc respectively.

Here is a more complete example showing all kinds of the unary operators:

class SmileyString < String
  def +@ 
    SmileyString.new(self + " :)")
  end

  def -@ 
    SmileyString.new(self + " :(")
  end

  def ~ 
    SmileyString.new(self + " :~")
  end

  def !
    SmileyString.new(self + " :!")
  end

  def to_proc
    Proc.new { |a| SmileyString.new(self + " " + a) }
  end

  def to_a
    [SmileyString.new(":("), self]
  end
end

a = SmileyString.new("Hello")
p +a                 # => "Hello :)"
p ~a                 # => "Hello :~"
p *a                 # => [":(", "Hello"]    
p !a                 # => "Hello :!"
p +~a                # => "Hello :~ :)"
p *+!-~a             # => [":(", "Hello :~ :( :! :)"]
p %w{:) :(}.map &a   # => ["Hello :)", "Hello :("]

In your example the Module just simply defines an unary + operator, with a default value of not doing anything with the object (which is a common behaviour for the unary plus, 5 and +5 usually mean the same thing). Mixing in with any class would mean the class immediately gets support for using the unary plus operator, which would do nothing much.

For example (using ruby <=2.2):

module M
  def +@
    self
  end
end

p +"Hello"     # => NoMethodError: undefined method `+@' for "Hello":String

class String
  include M
end

p +"Hello"     # => "Hello"

Note that in this example you can clearly see from the error message that the +@ method is missing from the class

Note that the above example will be different from Ruby 2.3, as the unary minus and plus are defined for Strings since that version, and they refer to returning a frozen and unfrozen string from the original.

What does ! mean at the end of a Ruby method definition?

Ruby doesn't treat the ! as a special character at the end of a method name. By convention, methods ending in ! have some sort of side-effect or other issue that the method author is trying to draw attention to. Examples are methods that do in-place changes, or might throw an exception, or proceed with an action despite warnings.

For example, here's how String#upcase! compares to String#upcase:

1.9.3p392 :004 > foo = "whatever"
 => "whatever"
1.9.3p392 :005 > foo.upcase
 => "WHATEVER"
1.9.3p392 :006 > foo
 => "whatever"
1.9.3p392 :007 > foo.upcase!
 => "WHATEVER"
1.9.3p392 :008 > foo
 => "WHATEVER"

ActiveRecord makes extensive use of bang-methods for things like save!, which raises an exception on failure (vs save, which returns true/false but doesn't raise an exception).

It's a "heads up!" flag, but there's nothing that enforces this. You could end all your methods in !, if you wanted to confuse and/or scare people.

What is the purpose of ! and ? at the end of method names?

It's "just sugarcoating" for readability, but they do have common meanings:

• Methods ending in ! perform some permanent or potentially dangerous change; for example:
  
  • Enumerable#sort returns a sorted version of the object while Enumerable#sort! sorts it in place.
  • In Rails, ActiveRecord::Base#save returns false if saving failed, while ActiveRecord::Base#save! raises an exception.
  • Kernel::exit causes a script to exit, while Kernel::exit! does so immediately, bypassing any exit handlers.
• Methods ending in ? return a boolean, which makes the code flow even more intuitively like a sentence — if number.zero? reads like "if the number is zero", but if number.zero just looks weird.

In your example, name.reverse evaluates to a reversed string, but only after the name.reverse! line does the name variable actually contain the reversed name. name.is_binary_data? looks like "is name binary data?".

Why are exclamation marks used in Ruby methods?

In general, methods that end in ! indicate that the method will modify the object it's called on. Ruby calls these as "dangerous methods" because they change state that someone else might have a reference to. Here's a simple example for strings:

foo = "A STRING"  # a string called foo
foo.downcase!     # modifies foo itself
puts foo          # prints modified foo

This will output:

a string

In the standard libraries, there are a lot of places you'll see pairs of similarly named methods, one with the ! and one without. The ones without are called "safe methods", and they return a copy of the original with changes applied to the copy, with the callee unchanged. Here's the same example without the !:

foo = "A STRING"    # a string called foo
bar = foo.downcase  # doesn't modify foo; returns a modified string
puts foo            # prints unchanged foo
puts bar            # prints newly created bar

This outputs:

A STRING
a string

Keep in mind this is just a convention, but a lot of Ruby classes follow it. It also helps you keep track of what's getting modified in your code.

What does || between methods mean?

The || operator means the same regardless of how complex the expressions are on each side of it.

A || B means:

• evaluate A
• if A == false or A == nil
  
  • evaluate B
  • return the value of B as the value of the A || B expression
• otherwise return the value of A as the value of the A || B expression

What does the question mark at the end of a method name mean in Ruby?

It is a code style convention; it indicates that a method returns a boolean value (true or false) or an object to indicate a true value (or “truthy” value).

The question mark is a valid character at the end of a method name.

https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/2.0.0/syntax/methods_rdoc.html#label-Method+Names

what does ? ? mean in ruby

Functions that end with ? in Ruby are functions that only return a boolean, that is, true, or false.

When you write a function that can only return true or false, you should end the function name with a question mark.

The example you gave shows a ternary statement, which is a one-line if-statement. .nil? is a boolean function that returns true if the value is nil and false if it is not. It first checks if the function is true, or false. Then performs an if/else to assign the value (if the .nil? function returns true, it gets nil as value, else it gets the File.join(root_dir, '/') as value.

It can be rewritten like so:

if root_dir.nil?
  prefix = nil
else
  prefix = File.join(root_dir, '/')
end

What does def (some param) mean in Ruby? How is it used in a class?

In your class definition for MyClass:

• Member is a class equal to an instance of the Struct class.
• mc = MyClass.new initializes the instance variable @members to an empty array.
• mc << "Bob" is the same as mc.<<("Bob") and causes the struct Member.new("Bob") to be appended to the array @members. You are defining MyClass#<< by using Array#<< within the method definition (since @members is an array).

mc << "Bob" is obtained from mc.<<("Bob") by dropping the optional parentheses around <<'s argument ("Bob") and adding a teaspoon of "syntactic sugar", permitting you to replace the first period with one or more spaces. It's analogous to 2 + 4, which is in fact 2.+(4) #=> 6. (Try it.)

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