Not sure why (answer, kind="string") is required if we add the line answer = answer.to_s if kind = "string", seems redun

Question

Can someone please clarify this for me? Not sure why (answer, kind="string") is required if we add the line answer = answer.to_s if kind = "string", seems redundant?
def parseanswer(answer, kind="string")
  answer = answer.tos if kind=="string"
  answer = answer.to_i if kind=="number"
  return answer
end
ask.rb
def parse_answer(answer, kind="string")
end

Jennifer Nordell · Accepted Answer

Hi there!  This is tricky.  It's because we could call the method like this:
```ruby
parseanswer(myanswer)
```
And you'll notice we send off one argument... not two.  When we do this then it will automatically set kind equal to "string" as the default value.  But we could call it like this:
```
x = "number"
parseanswer(myanswer, x)
```
At this point kind will now be equal to "number" instead of "string".  The kind="string" is just there to tell us what to default to if nothing is passed in.  Hope this helps! :smiley:

Clifford Stiber · Answer

Thanks.. Really appreciate the speedy reply.

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Clifford Stiber

Clifford Stiber

Not sure why (answer, kind="string") is required if we add the line answer = answer.to_s if kind = "string", seems redun

2 Answers

Jennifer Nordell

Jennifer Nordell

Clifford Stiber

Clifford Stiber