(Repost from Ruby-Forum.com. Sorry, but I'm really etching to continue learning Ruby..)
In
w(p)gtr I have found myself facing a code which, for the life of me,
I just could not understand a few thing in! Seeing as this is the
closest board realting to the subject, I shall post my question here -
The code I speak of is -
class String
# The parts of my daughter's organ
# instructor's name.
@@syllables = [
{ 'Paij' => 'Personal',
'Gonk' => 'Business',
'Blon' => 'Slave',
'Stro' => 'Master',
'Wert' => 'Father',
'Onnn' => 'Mother' },
{ 'ree' => 'AM',
'plo' => 'PM' }
]
# A method to determine what a
# certain name of his means.
def name_significance
parts = self.split( '-' )
syllables = @@syllables.dup
signif = parts.collect do |p|
syllables.shift[p]
end
signif.join( ' ' )
end
end
Now, what I could not understand is:
- Why is @@syllables divided into two hashes? Why is it an array in the
first place?
- And secondly, "syllables.shift[p]". Playing around I gathered that the
.shift[p] method returns the result of hash[p] and extracts the pair
from the hash. Yet I was told that the [p] part isn't an argument! So I
can't seem to fully understand this code..
It doesn't seem to work when I join the two hashes into one, and, again,
I can't understand why.
It is probably just a little thing I'm missing, or some-such event. If
anyone could be of assistance, I will be very grateful.
Yours,
-Gill
Marked 
