Ruby Methods and Optional parameters

Question

I\'m playing with Ruby on Rails and I\'m trying to create a method with optional parameters. Apparently there are many ways to do it. I trying naming the optional parameters

Answer 1

I don't see anything wrong with using an or operator to set defaults. Here's a real life example (note, uses rails' image_tag method):

file:

def gravatar_for(user, options = {} )   
    height = options[:height] || 90
    width = options[:width] || 90
    alt = options[:alt] || user.name + "'s gravatar"

    gravatar_address = 'http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/'

    clean_email = user.email.strip.downcase 
    hash = Digest::MD5.hexdigest(clean_email)

    image_tag gravatar_address + hash, height: height, width: width, alt: alt 
end

console:

2.0.0-p247 :049 > gravatar_for(user)
 => "\" width=\"90\" />" 
2.0.0-p247 :049 > gravatar_for(user, height: 123456, width: 654321)
 => "\" width=\"654321\" />" 
2.0.0-p247 :049 > gravatar_for(user, height: 123456, width: 654321, alt: %[dogs, cats, mice])
 => "\" width=\"654321\" />" 

It feels similar to using the initialize method when calling a class.