What are those pipe symbols for in Ruby?

Question

What are the pipe symbols for in Ruby?

I\'m learning Ruby and RoR, coming from a PHP and Java background, but I keep coming across code like this:

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Answer 1

They are the variables yielded to the block.

def this_method_takes_a_block
  yield(5)
end

this_method_takes_a_block do |num|
  puts num
end

Which outputs "5". A more arcane example:

def this_silly_method_too(num)
  yield(num + 5)
end

this_silly_method_too(3) do |wtf|
  puts wtf + 1
end

The output is "9".