Ruby: Discarding Variables from Multiple Assignment from Array

Question

For the given variable assignment from array:

a,b,c,d,e = [ "foo","bar","discard","discard","blah" ]

Is there a way to only have a, b, and e assigned and discard c and d? Is there an undef like in perl (Perl assignment with a dummy placeholder).

Answer 1

Yes.

a,b,_,_,e = [ "foo","bar","discard","discard","blah" ]

Answer 2

You can use the splat operator.

 a,b,*,e = ["foo","bar",nil,nil,"blah"]