Question

I have the following function –

def add (*nums)
  nums.reduce(:+)
end

def subtract(first, *rest)
  first - rest.reduce(:+)
end

def calculate(*nums, options)
  first = nums.first
  rest = nums.reverse.drop(1)
  add(*nums) if options.size == 0
end     

The following is the error I receive when invoking the function –

syntax error, unexpected ‘=’, expecting ‘)’ def calculate(*nums,
options={}) ^

What is the error in my syntax ?

Answer 1

You can have your splat and your options too, you just have to sort it out by hand:

def calculate(*nums)
  options = nums.last.is_a?(Hash) ? nums.pop : { }
  #...

Then you can say calculate(1, 2, 3) and calculate(1, 2, :size => 0) without difficulty. Of course, this assumes that a Hash isn’t a valid value for something in nums.