Question

Here is a sample code from a RSpec code:

describe Thing do
  def create_thing(options)
    thing = Thing.new
    thing.set_status(options[:status])
    thing
  end

  it "should do something when ok" do
    thing = create_thing(:status => 'ok')
    thing.do_fancy_stuff(1, true, :move => 'left', :obstacles => nil)
    ...
  end
end

So my confusion is mostly on this line:

thing.set_status(options[:status])

So create_thing method has an “option” parameter then we are passing status part of that parameter? Can someone explain this syntax in some easier words?

Answer 1

options is just a variable. The part you need to understand is this part

thing = create_thing(:status => 'ok') 

You are basically passing a Hash to create_thing and therefore options is a hash. Then you can access the value of the status key by doing options[:status].

If the above mentioned line looked like this

thing = create_thing("Foo")

options would be “Foo” and you could get an error trying to do something like options[:status]