Ruby return is implicit

[theoo]

Using YARD for a ruby project, I realized that the "@return" will be documented only when an explicit return is provided in the commented function. Ruby has implicit return and I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to always add it in the generated snippet.

Something like:

# @return [TODO:nil]

But for this to work with ruby, it seems that Neogen should always "call" return_statement in the template instead of only when the function has an explicit return.

[danymat]

Hello, so you are telling me that YARD should provide by default implicit returns ?
If so (I still need a source for this claim), I can make this work 😃

[theoo]

I still need a source for this claim

Hi danymat,

sure thing. A quick ruby implicit return search yields the following sources:

• https://jtrudell.github.io/blog/ruby_return_values/
• https://franzejr.github.io/best-ruby/idiomatic_ruby/implicit_return.html

The following code will print "Implicit return has its good sides".

#
# Example method to demonstrate implicit return
#
# @param whatever [String] text to append
#
# @return [String] text
#
def example(whatever)
  "Implicit return #{whatever}"
end

puts example("has its good sides")

Not that the following with return something as well. There is no such thing like "no returned value" with ruby.

#
# Another example method to demonstrate implicit return
#
# @return [NilClass] nil
#
def mute
 puts "The silence is gold."
 nil
end

puts mute.inspect

... will output:

The silence is gold.
nil

However explicit returns have their use, like in most language:

#
# Example method to demonstrate explicit return
#
# @param number [Integer] to test
#
# @return [String,Integer] "hit" if multiple of 10 otherwise the original _number_ value
#
def test(number)
  return "hit" if number % 10
  # do stuff
  number
end

puts test(1)
# 1
puts test(20)
# hit

I'm not sure that I wrote the best examples, but conventinal cases are illustrated that way. So in a nutshell, yes, ruby methods always return something.