So I've been over Traiblazer and Reform documentation and I often see this kind of code
class AlbumForm < Reform::Form
collection :songs, populate_if_empty: :populate_songs! do
property :name
end
def populate_songs!(fragment:, **)
Song.find_by(name: fragment["name"]) or Song.new
end
end
Notice the def populate_songs!(fragment:, **)
definition?
I'm well aware of double splat named arguments (like **others
) that capture all other keyword arguments. But I've never seen **
alone, without a name.
So my 2 questions are:
what does
**
mean in the block above?
It's a kwsplat, but it's not assigned a name. So this method will accept arbitrary set of keyword arguments and ignore all but :fragment
.
why use this syntax?
To ignore arguments you're not interested in.
A little demo
class Person
attr_reader :name, :age
def initialize(name:, age:)
@name = name
@age = age
end
def description
"name: #{name}, age: #{age}"
end
end
class Rapper < Person
def initialize(name:, **)
name = "Lil #{name}" # amend one argument
super # send name and the rest (however many there are) to super
end
end
Person.new(name: 'John', age: 25).description # => "name: John, age: 25"
Rapper.new(name: 'John', age: 25).description # => "name: Lil John, age: 25"