Can you supply arguments to the map(&:method) syntax in Ruby?
You can create a simple patch on Symbol
like this:
class Symbol
def with(*args, &block)
->(caller, *rest) { caller.send(self, *rest, *args, &block) }
end
end
Which will enable you to do not only this:
a = [1,3,5,7,9]
a.map(&:+.with(2))
# => [3, 5, 7, 9, 11]
But also a lot of other cool stuff, like passing multiple parameters:
arr = ["abc", "babc", "great", "fruit"]
arr.map(&:center.with(20, '*'))
# => ["********abc*********", "********babc********", "*******great********", "*******fruit********"]
arr.map(&:[].with(1, 3))
# => ["bc", "abc", "rea", "rui"]
arr.map(&:[].with(/a(.*)/))
# => ["abc", "abc", "at", nil]
arr.map(&:[].with(/a(.*)/, 1))
# => ["bc", "bc", "t", nil]
And even work with inject
, which passes two arguments to the block:
%w(abecd ab cd).inject(&:gsub.with('cde'))
# => "cdeeecde"
Or something super cool as passing [shorthand] blocks to the shorthand block:
[['0', '1'], ['2', '3']].map(&:map.with(&:to_i))
# => [[0, 1], [2, 3]]
[%w(a b), %w(c d)].map(&:inject.with(&:+))
# => ["ab", "cd"]
[(1..5), (6..10)].map(&:map.with(&:*.with(2)))
# => [[2, 4, 6, 8, 10], [12, 14, 16, 18, 20]]
Here is a conversation I had with @ArupRakshit explaining it further:
Can you supply arguments to the map(&:method) syntax in Ruby?
As @amcaplan suggested in the comment below, you could create a shorter syntax, if you rename the with
method to call
. In this case, ruby has a built in shortcut for this special method .()
.
So you could use the above like this:
class Symbol
def call(*args, &block)
->(caller, *rest) { caller.send(self, *rest, *args, &block) }
end
end
a = [1,3,5,7,9]
a.map(&:+.(2))
# => [3, 5, 7, 9, 11]
[(1..5), (6..10)].map(&:map.(&:*.(2)))
# => [[2, 4, 6, 8, 10], [12, 14, 16, 18, 20]]
For your example can be done a.map(&2.method(:+))
.
Arup-iMac:$ pry
[1] pry(main)> a = [1,3,5,7,9]
=> [1, 3, 5, 7, 9]
[2] pry(main)> a.map(&2.method(:+))
=> [3, 5, 7, 9, 11]
[3] pry(main)>
Here is how it works :-
[3] pry(main)> 2.method(:+)
=> #<Method: Fixnum#+>
[4] pry(main)> 2.method(:+).to_proc
=> #<Proc:0x000001030cb990 (lambda)>
[5] pry(main)> 2.method(:+).to_proc.call(1)
=> 3
2.method(:+)
gives a Method
object. Then &
, on 2.method(:+)
, actually a call #to_proc
method, which is making it a Proc
object. Then follow What do you call the &: operator in Ruby?.
As the post you linked to confirms, a.map(&:class)
is not a shorthand for a.map {|x| x.class}
but for a.map(&:class.to_proc)
.
This means that to_proc
is called on whatever follows the &
operator.
So you could give it directly a Proc
instead:
a.map(&(Proc.new {|x| x+2}))
I know that most probably this defeats the purpose of your question but I can't see any other way around it - it's not that you specify which method to be called, you just pass it something that responds to to_proc
.