ruby的to_proc

1,先看api
[quote]Method#proc
meth.to_proc => prc
Returns a Proc object corresponding to this method.

prc.to_proc → prc
Part of the protocol for converting objects to Proc objects. Instances of class Proc simply return themselves.[/quote]
2,to_proc经常和&一起使用.
可以把block传递给带block的方法.block的to_proc返回的就是本身.
如果对象自带to_proc方法的话，就可以把它当作带"&"的参数传给带block方法(默认状态下，Proc、Method对象都有to_proc方法)。方法调用时会执行to_proc，它将返回Proc对象.

pobj = lambda {|v| p v }
[1,2,3].each(&pobj)
=> 1
   2
   3

class Foo
  def to_proc
    lambda  {|v| p v}
  end
end
[1,2,3].each(&Foo.new)

=> 1
   2
   3

class Symbol
  def to_proc
    proc { |obj, *args| obj.send(self, *args) }
  end
end
projects.collect(&:name)
[1, 2, 3].map(&:to_s.to_proc) #=> ["1", "2", "3"]

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base; end;
[{:name => 'Dan'}, {:name => 'Josh'}].map(&Person.method(:new))
class Class
  def to_proc
    proc(&method(:new))
  end
end
[{:name => 'Dan'}, {:name => 'Josh'}].map(&Person)

3,to_proc和method_missing

module Kernel   
  protected   
  def it() It.new end  
  alias its it   
end  

class It   

  undef_method(*(instance_methods - %w*__id__ __send__*))   

  def initialize   
    @methods = []   
  end  

  def method_missing(*args, &block)   
    @methods << [args, block] unless args == [:respond_to?, :to_proc]   
    self  
  end  

  def to_proc   
    lambda do |obj|   
      @methods.inject(obj) do |current,(args,block)|   
        current.send(*args, &block)   
      end  
    end  
  end  
end 

File.read("/etc/passwd").split.sort_by &it.split(":")[2]   
User.find(:all).map &its.contacts.map(&its.last_name.capitalize)  

4,Going crazy
可以让&使用多个参数，更性感。
What I always regretted though was not being to pass any arguments, so I hacked and monkeypatched a bit, and got:

class Symbol

  def with(*args, &block)
    @proc_arguments = { :args => args, :block => block }
    self
  end

  def to_proc
    @proc_arguments ||= {}
    args = @proc_arguments[:args] || []
    block = @proc_arguments[:block]
    @proc_arguments = nil
    Proc.new { |obj, *other| obj.send(self, *(other + args), &block) }
  end

end

#So you can now write:
some_dates.map(&:strftime.with("%d-%M-%Y"))

Not that this is any shorter than just creating the darn block in the first place. But hey, it’s a good exercise in metaprogramming and show of more of Ruby’s awesome flexibility.

After this I remembered something similar that annoyed me before. It’s that Rails helper methods are just a bag of methods available to, because they are mixed in your template. So if you have an array of numbers that you want to format as currency, you’d have to do:

<%= @prices.map { |price| number_to_currency(price) }.to_sentence %>

What if I could apply some to_proc-love to that too? All these helper methods cannot be added to strings, fixnums, and the likes; that would clutter way to much. Rather, it might by a nice idea to use procs that understands helper methods. Here is what I created:

module ProcProxyHelper

  def it(position = 1)
    ProcProxy.new(self, position)
  end

  class ProcProxy

    instance_methods.each { |m| undef_method(m) unless m.to_s =~ /^__|respond_to\?|method_missing/ }

    def initialize(object, position = 1)
      @object, @position = object, position
    end

    def to_proc
      raise "Please specify a method to be called on the object" unless @delegation
      Proc.new { |*values| @object.__send__(*@delegation[:args].dup.insert(@position, *values), &@delegation[:block]) }
    end

    def method_missing(*args, &block)
      @delegation = { :args => args, :block => block }
      self
    end

  end

end

I used a clean blank class (in Ruby 1.9, you’d want to inherit it from BasicObject), in which I will provide the proper proc-object. I play around with the argument list a bit, handling multiple arguments and blocks too. You can now use this syntax:

<%= @prices.map(&it.number_to_currency).to_sentence %>

That is a lot sexier if you as me. And you can use it in any object, not just inside views. And lets add some extra arguments and some Enumerator-love too:

class SomeClass
  include ProcProxyHelper

  def initialize(name, list)
    @name, @list = name, list
  end

  def apply(value, index, seperator)
    "#{@name}, #{index} #{separator} #{value}"
  end

  def applied_list
    @list.map.with_index(&it.apply(":"))
  end

end

In case you are wondering, the position you can specify is to tell where the arguments need to go. Position 0 is the method name, so you shouldn’t use that, but any other value is okay. An example might be that you cant to wrap an array of texts into span-tags:

<%= some_texts.map(&it(2).content_tag(:span, :class => "foo")).to_sentence %>

So there you have it. I’m probably solving a problem that doesn’t exist. It is however a nice example of the awesome power of Ruby. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little demonstration of the possible uses of to_proc.

最后的一部分来自于http://iain.nl/2010/02/going-crazy-with-to_proc/