Today I learned about the splat operator in ruby, aka the * or asterisk operator.

I came across some code like this in the readme for Motion:

def handle_created(name)
    @todos = [name, *@todos.first(@count - 1)]
end

And I couldn't figure out what that middle line did. I can see it's assigning an array to a variable. The first element of the array will be the name parameter that's provided to the method. But what is going on with *@todos.first(@count - 1)?

I was most confused about the *, but I also wasn't sure why first was taking an argument. At first I guessed it was finding the first element that matched the condition @count - 1, but that didn't make much sense. Actually, first takes an argument that tells it to return the first x elements of the array it's called on.

Okay, so this * thing is operating on an array. I learned from my helpful coworkers that one thing the splat operator can do is destructure the array it's called on, so something like:

[1, *[2, 3]] 
=> 
[1, 2, 3]

So, that method in the middle is taking a new name, and making a new array where that name is the first element and all the todos that were already in the array follow that element. The result is one single array with a list of names in it.

Next I read this article on the splat operator and learned a bunch more cool things this operator can do.

Handy!