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How can one document a function with a variable number of arguments in YARD?


I have a function that take a variable number of arguments, like this:

def myfun(*args)
  # ...
end

All args are of the same type (Symbol), so right now I document the function like if there were only one argument, saying it can take more than one, e.g.:

# this function doesn’t do anything
# @param [Symbol]: this argument does something, you can add more symbols
#                  if you want
def myfun(*args)
  # ...
end

Is there a built-in way to handle this case?


Solution

  • The following makes sense because args is an Array inside the method, although none of the params are an Array as such:

    # this function doesn’t do anything
    #
    # @param [Array<Symbol>] args these arguments do something
    # @return [nil]
    def myfun(*args)
      # ...
    end
    

    Note the * is dropped from the param name in the comment. This is just to be consistent - args is an Array, but *args is not.

    A quick search shows quite a few projects using this style, including inside Yard's own .rb files (e.g. see source for initialize in Verifier class) - although no examples of this convention are given in the guide.