Why in Ruby, a || 1 will throw an error when `a` is undefined, but a = a || 1 will not?
- by Jian Lin
When a is undefined, then a || 1 will throw an error, but a = a || 1 will not. Isn't that a little bit inconsistent?
irb(main):001:0> a
NameError: undefined local variable or method `a' for main:Object
from (irb):1
from c:/ruby/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
irb(main):002:0> a || 1
NameError: undefined local variable or method `a' for main:Object
from (irb):2
from c:/ruby/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
irb(main):003:0> a = a || 1
=> 1
