Question

Is there a more elegant way of implementing the following logic in Ruby?

a = nil  #=> obviously 'a' can have value but I am just setting it to nil to make this example clearer
b = a
unless b
  b = "value"
end

Thus, we have the value of b set in the end. We could have another variation of the above code, like so:

a = nil
b = a
b ||= "value"

And I can also use ternary statement to write the above as:

b = a ? a : "value"

But, if you replace variable a and the expression "value" with a long line of code, then a ternary statement starts looking ugly, too.

Can this be made more elegant and expressive somehow, or are we limited to just the above solutions?

Answer 1

You almost answered your question yourself.
Namely, the two statements

b = a
b ||= "value"

can be combined into a single one:

b = a || "value"