Question

I am using Ruby on Rails 3 and I would like to initialize my class. In my case I need to set params[:name] ||= {} every time I use that class.

How to do that?

---

UPDATE I

Is it possible to simplify things using something like

class A
  def initialize
    params[:name] ||= {}
  end
end

?

---

UPDATE II

I forgot to say that in my class I have to use that parameter as an hash:

class A
  def initialize
    # code to initialize params[:name] ||= {}
  end

  def action_name
    params[:name][:ronda] = "Jack"
  end
end

If I try to set params[:name][:ronda] without inizialize params[:name] ||= {}, I get an error. For this I have to initialize the class.

I the above code I can do

  def action_name
    params[:name] ||= {}
    params[:name][:ronda] = "Jack"
  end

and it will work, but since I have to use that for every action in the class, I would like to refractor code setting the params[:name] at once.

Answer 1

You can use the initialize function to set defaults:

class A
  def initialize
    @params = {name: {}}
  end

  def params
    @params
  end
end

A.new.params # {:name => {}}

You can also default upon access this way:

class A
  def initialize
    @params = {}
  end

  def params
    @params[:name] ||= {}
    @params
  end
end

A.new.params # {:name => {}}

The difference is that the first example adds the :name parameter upon creation (A.new) while the second example adds it upon access (A.new.params).