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Mark Weinberg
3,002 PointsHow does Ruby know from the word "item" in the pipe to print out "Hello!" and then the numbers 0 to 5?
Regarding this code:
5.times do |item|
puts "Hello! #{item}"
end
How does Ruby know from the word "item" to count 0 to 5 after each Hello!?
I can put in a different word like "dog" in the pipe argument, put "dog" in the string interpolation and still the same results. Can someone explain to me what the argument in the pipe is supposed to do?
2 Answers
Jordan Bowman
9,439 PointsYou're right, |item| can be named anything you want: dog, x, i, mark, whatever.
It's purpose is to represent each piece/item/element that you are iterating over. If you're iterating over an array, it represents each item in that array.
Then, you can then use this representative keyword inside the block to work with each item you're iterating over. In your example, you wouldn't be able to print to the screen "Hello [name of item being iterated over]" without having this representative keyword available to you.
So in short, you can name this representation whatever you want, and then you can use that to work with each iterated item and do whatever you want with it inside the block.
Todd MacIntyre
12,248 PointsIf nothing is being passed INTO the argument, then it will default to the indexes of each iteration.