What Does the Operator ||= Stand for in Ruby

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 ||= 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 ||= 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 the operator ||= stand for in Ruby?

It assigns a value if not already assigned. Like this:

a = nil
a ||= 1

a = 1
a ||= 2

In the first example, a will be set to 1. In the second one, a will still be 1.

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.

Ruby: What does the !~ operator mean?

It is negation of =~, a regex match.

"a" !~ /b/
# => true

It is useful when you want to check whether a string does not match a certain pattern. For example, if you want to check if string s includes only numbers, then you can do:

s !~ /\D/

When do we use the ||= operator in Rails ? What is its significance?

Lets break it down:

@_current_user ||= {SOMETHING}

This is saying, set @_current_user to {SOMETHING} if it is nil, false, or undefined. Otherwise set it to @_current_user, or in other words, do nothing. An expanded form:

@_current_user || @_current_user = {SOMETHING}

Ok, now onto the right side.

session[:current_user_id] &&
      User.find(session[:current_user_id])

You usually see && with boolean only values, however in Ruby you don't have to do that. The trick here is that if session[:current_user_id] is not nil, and User.find(session[:current_user_id]) is not nil, the expression will evaluate to User.find(session[:current_user_id]) otherwise nil.

So putting it all together in pseudo code:

if defined? @_current_user && @_current_user
  @_current_user = @_current_user
else
  if session[:current_user_id] && User.find(session[:current_user_id])
    @_current_user = User.find(session[:current_user_id])
  else
    @_current_user = nil
  end
end

What does - operator in Ruby mean?

That's a new syntax for lambda. You can also write it like this:

subject.post_source = lambda { new_post }

Here's how old and new versions look like with parameters (thanks to Michael Kohl for suggestion):

v_old = lambda {|a, b| a + b}
v_new = ->(a, b) { a + b}

v_old.call(1, 2) # => 3
v_new.call(3, 4) # => 7

||=' 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.

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