First, let’s look at a typical example that handles the arguments in an ad hoc fashion. Consider the following Person class. You can pass three arguments to the initializer, the first_name, the last_name, and the age. Or, you can pass a hash using the keys :first_name, :last_name, and :age.

require "rubygems" 
require "spec" 

class Person
  attr_reader :first_name, :last_name, :age
  def initialize *args
    arg = args[0]
    if arg.kind_of? Hash       # 1
      @first_name = arg[:first_name]
      @last_name  = arg[:last_name]
      @age        = arg[:age]
    else
      @first_name = args[0]
      @last_name  = args[1]
      @age        = args[2]
    end
  end
end

describe "Person#initialize" do 
  it "should accept a hash with key-value pairs for the attributes" do
    person = Person.new :first_name => "Dean", :last_name => "Wampler", :age => 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
  it "should accept a first name, last name, and age arguments" do
    person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
end

The condition on the # 1 comment line checks to see if the first argument is a Hash. If so, the attribute’s values are extracted from it. Otherwise, it is assumed that three arguments were specified in a particular order. They are passed to #initialize in a three-element array. The two rspec examples exercise these behaviors. For simplicity, we ignore some more general cases, as well as error handling.

Another approach that is more flexible is to use duck typing, instead. For example, we could replace the line with the # 1 comment with this line:

if arg.respond_to? :has_key?

There aren’t many objects that respond to #has_key?, so we’re highly confident that we can use [symbol] to extract the values from the hash.

This implementation is fairly straightforward. You’ve probably written code like this yourself. However, it could get complicated for more involved cases.

Pattern Matching, a Functional Programming Approach

Most programming languages today have switch or case statements of some sort and most have support for regular expression matching. However, in functional programming languages, pattern matching is so important and pervasive that these languages offer very powerful and convenient support for pattern matching.

Fortunately, we can get powerful pattern matching, typical of functional languages, in Ruby using the Case gem that is part of the MenTaLguY’s Omnibus Concurrency library. Omnibus provides support for the hot Actor model of concurrency, which Erlang has made famous. However, it would be a shame to restrict the use of the Case gem to parsing Actor messages. It’s much more general purpose than that.

Let’s rework our example using the Case gem.

require "rubygems" 
require "spec" 
require "case" 

class Person
  attr_reader :first_name, :last_name, :age
  def initialize *args
    case args
    when Case[Hash]       # 1
      arg = args[0]
      @first_name = arg[:first_name]
      @last_name  = arg[:last_name]
      @age        = arg[:age]
    else
      @first_name = args[0]
      @last_name  = args[1]
      @age        = args[2]
    end
  end
end

describe "Person#initialize" do 
  it "should accept a first name, last name, and age arguments" do
    person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
  it "should accept a has with :first_name => fn, :last_name => ln, and :age => age" do
    person = Person.new :first_name => "Dean", :last_name => "Wampler", :age => 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
end

We require the case gem, which puts the #=== method on steroids. In the when statement in #initialize, the expression when Case[Hash] matches on a one-element array where the element is a Hash. We extract the key-value pairs as before. The else clause assumes we have an array for the arguments.

So far, this is isn’t very impressive, but all we did was to reproduce the original behavior. Let’s extend the example to really exploit some of the neat features of the Case gem’s pattern matching. First, let’s narrow the allowed array values.

require "rubygems" 
require "spec" 
require "case" 

class Person
  attr_reader :first_name, :last_name, :age
  def initialize *args
    case args
    when Case[Hash]       # 1
      arg = args[0]
      @first_name = arg[:first_name]
      @last_name  = arg[:last_name]
      @age        = arg[:age]
    when Case[String, String, Integer]
      @first_name = args[0]
      @last_name  = args[1]
      @age        = args[2]
    else
      raise "Invalid arguments: #{args}" 
    end
  end
end

describe "Person#initialize" do 
  it "should accept a first name, last name, and age arguments" do
    person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
  it "should accept a has with :first_name => fn, :last_name => ln, and :age => age" do
    person = Person.new :first_name => "Dean", :last_name => "Wampler", :age => 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
  it "should not accept an array unless it is a [String, String, Integer]" do
    lambda { person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", "39" }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end
end

The new expression when Case[String, String, Integer] only matches a three-element array where the first two arguments are strings and the third argument is an integer, which are the types we want. If you use an array with a different number of arguments or the arguments have different types, this when clause won’t match. Instead, you’ll get the default else clause, which raises an exception. We added another rspec example to test this condition, where the user’s age was specified as a string instead of as an integer. Of course, you could decide to attempt a conversion of this argument, to make your code more “forgiving” of user mistakes.

Similarly, what happens if the method supports default values some of the parameters. As written, we can’t support that option, but let’s look at a slight variation of Person#initialize, where a hash of values is not supported, to see what would happen.

require "rubygems" 
require "spec" 
require "case" 

class Person
  attr_reader :first_name, :last_name, :age
  def initialize first_name = "Bob", last_name = "Martin", age = 29
    case [first_name, last_name, age]
    when Case[String, String, Integer]
      @first_name = first_name
      @last_name  = last_name
      @age        = age
    else
      raise "Invalid arguments: #{first_name}, #{last_name}, #{age}" 
    end
  end
end

def check person, expected_fn, expected_ln, expected_age
  person.first_name.should == expected_fn
  person.last_name.should  == expected_ln
  person.age.should        == expected_age
end

describe "Person#initialize" do 
  it "should require a first name (string), last name (string), and age (integer) arguments" do
    person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", 39
    check person, "Dean", "Wampler", 39
  end
  it "should accept the defaults for all parameters" do
    person = Person.new
    check person, "Bob", "Martin", 29
  end
  it "should accept the defaults for the last name and age parameters" do
    person = Person.new "Dean" 
    check person, "Dean", "Martin", 29
  end
  it "should accept the defaults for the age parameter" do
    person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler" 
    check person, "Dean", "Wampler", 29
  end
  it "should not accept the first name as a symbol" do
    lambda { person = Person.new :Dean, "Wampler", "39" }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end
  it "should not accept the last name as a symbol" do
  end
  it "should not accept the age as a string" do
    lambda { person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", "39" }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end
end

We match on all three arguments as an array, asserting they are of the correct type. As you might expect, #initialize always gets three parameters passed to it, including when default values are used.

Let’s return to our original example, where the object can be constructed with a hash or a list of arguments. There are two more things (at least …) that we can do. First, we’re not yet validating the types of the values in the hash. Second, we can use the Case gem to impose constraints on the values, such as requiring non-empty name strings and a positive age.

require "rubygems" 
require "spec" 
require "case" 

class Person
  attr_reader :first_name, :last_name, :age
  def initialize *args
    case args
    when Case[Hash]
      arg = args[0]
      @first_name = arg[:first_name]
      @last_name  = arg[:last_name]
      @age        = arg[:age]
    when Case[String, String, Integer]
      @first_name = args[0]
      @last_name  = args[1]
      @age        = args[2]
    else
      raise "Invalid arguments: #{args}" 
    end
    validate_name @first_name, "first_name" 
    validate_name @last_name, "last_name" 
    validate_age
  end

  protected

  def validate_name name, field_name
    case name
    when Case::All[String, Case.guard {|s| s.length > 0 }]
    else
      raise "Invalid #{field_name}: #{first_name}" 
    end
  end

  def validate_age
    case @age
    when Case::All[Integer, Case.guard {|n| n > 0 }]
    else
      raise "Invalid age: #{@age}" 
    end
  end
end

describe "Person#initialize" do 
  it "should accept a first name, last name, and age arguments" do
    person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
  it "should accept a has with :first_name => fn, :last_name => ln, and :age => age" do
    person = Person.new :first_name => "Dean", :last_name => "Wampler", :age => 39
    person.first_name.should == "Dean" 
    person.last_name.should  == "Wampler" 
    person.age.should        == 39
  end
  it "should not accept an array unless it is a [String, String, Integer]" do
    lambda { person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", "39" }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end
  it "should not accept a first name that is a zero-length string" do
    lambda { person = Person.new "", "Wampler", 39 }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end    
  it "should not accept a first name that is not a string" do
    lambda { person = Person.new :Dean, "Wampler", 39 }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end    
  it "should not accept a last name that is a zero-length string" do
    lambda { person = Person.new "Dean", "", 39 }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end    
  it "should not accept a last name that is not a string" do
    lambda { person = Person.new :Dean, :Wampler, 39 }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end    
  it "should not accept an age that is less than or equal to zero" do
    lambda { person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", -1 }.should raise_error(Exception)
    lambda { person = Person.new "Dean", "Wampler", 0 }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end    
  it "should not accept an age that is not an integer" do
    lambda { person = Person.new :Dean, :Wampler, "39" }.should raise_error(Exception)
  end    
end

We have added validate_name and validate_age methods that are invoked at the end of #initialize. In validate_name, the one when clause requires “all” the conditions to be true, that the name is a string and that it has a non-zero length. Similarly, validate_age has a when clause that requires age to be a positive integer.

Final Thoughts

So, how valuable is this? The code is certainly longer, but it specifies and enforces expected behavior more precisely. The rspec examples verify the enforcement. It smells a little of static typing, which is good or bad, depending on your point of view. ;)

Personally, I think the conditional checks are a good way to add robustness in small ways to libraries that will grow and evolve for a long time. The checks document the required behavior for code readers, like new team members, but of course, they should really get that information from the tests. ;) (However, it would be nice to extract the information into the rdocs.)

For small, short-lived projects, I might not worry about the conditional checks as much (but how many times have those “short-lived projects” refused to die?).

You can read more about Omnibus and Case in this InfoQ interview with MenTaLguY. I didn’t discuss using the Actor model of concurrency, for which these gems were designed. For an example of Actors using Omnibus, see my Better Ruby through Functional Programming presentation or the Confreak’s video of an earlier version of the presentation I gave at last year’s RubyConf.