On Tuesday, January 21, 2003, 10:52:40 AM, Hal wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dmitri Colebatch" <dim / colebatch.com> > To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk / ruby-lang.org> > Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 5:47 PM > Subject: Re: Local variable scope >> :D always the way.... ok, by works fine - I'm assuming the intent is >> obvious (in that I expect it to return the arg multiplied by 4, or the >> string "foobar!" if there is no arg passed in. > :) Yes... actually I guess you'd have to default it to > nil if you actually wanted it to accept NO ARGUMENT > passed in: def foo(foobar=nil) Just to emphasise the point. If you call *your* code with no argument, the parser or whever you call it will spit the dummy. Just as zero is a number, nil qualifies as an argument. Gavin