Question

I’m confused about the returning values in Ruby. For example, if I do

(1..5).each {|i| puts 2*i}

it returns

=> 1..5

I just don’t know why it happens. It seems sometimes it returns more than one variable?

Answer 1

Everything in ruby is an expression.* Expression has a value. each evaluates to the object it iterated. In this case it’s a Range object.

Take a look at definition of Array#each:

               VALUE
rb_ary_each(VALUE array)
{
    long i;
    volatile VALUE ary = array;

    RETURN_ENUMERATOR(ary, 0, 0);
    for (i=0; i<RARRAY_LEN(ary); i++) {
        rb_yield(RARRAY_PTR(ary)[i]);
    }
    return ary;
}

For every element in the input array it calls the block, and then returns the input array.

* From the top of my head, I can’t name a thing in ruby that’s not an expression.