Block Anaphora

The RewriteRails plugin supports Block Anaphora: When writing a block that takes just one parameter, you can use either it or its as a parameter without actually declaring the parameter using { |it| ... }. This is a win whenever the purpose of the block and the parameter is obvious, for example:

Person.all(...).map { its.first_name }

Writing:

Person.all(...).map { |its| its.first_name }

Just adds clutter. This example is the same use case as Symbol#to_proc:

Person.all(...).map(&:first_name)

However, block anaphora go further. Unlike Symbol#to_proc, you can supply parameters:

User.all(...).each { it.increment(:visits) }

Or chain methods:

Person.all(...).map { its.first_name.titlecase }

It needn't be the receiver either:

Person.all(...).each { (name_count[its.first_name] ||= 0) += 1 }

It works best when you would naturally use the word "it" or the possessive "its" if you were reading the code aloud to a colleague. And one more thing: You can use the underscore, _ instead of it or its. This is for backwards compatibility with String#to_block.

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The post Anaphora in Ruby discusses block anaphora.

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