How to skip a Parameter with Default Values in Groovy?

Question

My Groovy method has 3 parameters and the last 2 have default values. I want to skip the second parameter, and only provide values for the first and the third like so..

 def askForADate(girlsName, msg = 'Will you go out with me?', beg = 'pretty please!!') {
    println "$girlsName, $msg $beg!"
 }

askForADate('Jennifer',,'Because I love you!')

Right now this prints out...

 Jennifer, Because I love you! pretty please!!!

So it looks like it is plugging the value I am passing in for the third parameter into the second.

How to fix that?

Answer 1

As doelleri said, you'll need to write two version of thie method. Unless you'll use some groovy goodness with named arguments!

def askForADate(Map op, girlsName) {
    println "$girlsName, ${op.get('msg', 'Will you go out with me?')} ${op.get('beg', 'pretty please!!')}!"
}

askForADate(beg: 'Because I love you!', 'Jennifer')

Prints out: Jennifer, Will you go out with me? Because I love you!!

See http://mrhaki.blogspot.com/2015/09/groovy-goodness-turn-method-parameters.html for more details

This solution has the clear disadvantage of reordering the arguments as now the girls name is last in line.