Call method from within itself to execute again

Question

What is the proper way in ruby to call a method from within itself to rerun In the sample below when @dest_reenter is equal to yes I would want the b_stage method to execute again

def b_stage 
    if @dest_reenter == 'yes'
        @dest_reenter = nil
        b_stage
    end
end

Answer 1

That is how you do recursion, but using those instance variables isn't the way to go. A better example would be something like this:

def b_stage(i)
    if i < 5
        puts i
        i += 1
        b_stage(i)
    end
end

If you call b_stage(0), the output will be

0
1
2
3
4

Answer 2

Use a separate method:

def go
  ...
  middle_thing(true)
end

def middle_thing(first_time)
  next_page unless first_time == true
  parse_page
end

def parse_page
  ...(parsing code)
  middle_thing(false)
end