Hi -- Looking at: ruby 1.9.0 (2008-02-26 revision 15615) [i686-darwin9.2.0] The * operator is tied to to_a, but there's no default to_a anymore, but * works even without to_a. irb(main):002:0> obj = Object.new => #<Object:0x3cb748> irb(main):003:0> obj.to_a NoMethodError: undefined method `to_a' for #<Object:0x3cb748> irb(main):004:0> [*obj] => [#<Object:0x3cb748>] Am I right in interpreting this to mean that * works by doing an implicit to_a-ish operation, unless to_a is defined in which case it uses to_a? (I was kind of expect it not to work in the absence of the default to_a, though I'm happy if it does.) David -- Upcoming Rails training from David A. Black and Ruby Power and Light: ADVANCING WITH RAILS, April 14-17 2008, New York City CORE RAILS, June 24-27 2008, London (Skills Matter) See http://www.rubypal.com for details. Berlin dates coming soon!