Issue #19979 has been updated by Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme).
It's also
a bit similar to `**nil`, which is almost never used.
The intention isn't for this to be frequently used, but useful when an API author
wants to make sure that the API is defined strictly.
If it's not meant to be frequently used, I don't think it's worth adding new
syntax. I mean, a new method is fine and can often be backported/polyfilled, but the
burden of new syntax is much higher and I don't think this is worth it. IMHO #15554 is
an order of magnitude better approach.
----------------------------------------
Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via
`&nil`
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-105187
* Author: ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
----------------------------------------
## Abstract
This feature proposes new syntax to allow methods to explicitly declare that they
don't accept blocks, and makes passing of a block to such methods an error.
## Background
In #15554, it was proposed to automatically detect methods that do not use the block
passed to them, and to error if a block was passed to such methods. As far as I can tell,
it was later on closed since #10499 solved a large part of the problem.
That proposal has, as part of [a dev meeting
discussion](https://github.com/ruby/dev-meeting-log/blob/b4357853c03dfe71b6…,
a proposal from @matz to allow methods to use `&nil` to explicitly declare that they
don't accept a block. At the time, the proposal was trying to solve a bigger problem,
so this sub-proposal was never considered seriously. However, notes in the proposal say:
It is explicit, but it is tough to add this `&nil`
parameter declaration to all of methods (do you want to add it to `def []=(i, e,
&nil)`?). (I agree `&nil` is valuable on some situations)
This proposal extracts that sub-proposal to make this a new language feature.
## Proposal
In Ruby, it is always valid for the caller to pass a block to a method call, even if the
callee is not expecting a block to be passed. This leads to subtle user errors, where the
author of some code assumes a method call uses a block, but the block passed to the method
call is silently ignored.
The proposal is to introduce `&nil` at method declaration sites to mean "This
method does not accept a block". This is symmetric to the ability to pass `&nil`
at call sites to mean "I am not passing a block to this method call", which is
sometimes useful when making `super` calls (since blocks are always implicitly passed).
Explicitly, the proposal is to make the following behaviour be a part of Ruby:
```ruby
def find(item = nil, &nil)
# some implementation that doesn't call `yield` or `block_given?`
end
find { |i| i == 42 }
# => ArgumentError: passing block to the method `find' that does not accept a
block.
```
## Implementation
I assume the implementation would be a grammar change to make `&nil` valid at method
declaration sites, as well as raising an `ArgumentError` for methods that are called with
a block but are declared with `&nil`.
## Evaluation
Since I don't have an implementation, I can't make a proper evaluation of the
feature proposal. However, I would expect the language changes to be minimal with no
runtime costs for methods that don't use the `&nil` syntax.
## Discussion
This proposal has much smaller scope than #15554 so that the Ruby language can start
giving library authors the ability to explicitly mark their methods as not accepting a
block. This is fully backward compatible, since it is an opt-in behaviour and not an
opt-out one.
Future directions after this feature proposal could be a way to signal to the VM that any
method in a file that doesn't explicitly use `yield`/`block_given?` or explicitly
declared a block parameter should be treated as not accepting a block. This can be done
via some kind of pragma similar to `frozen_string_literal`, or through other means.
However, such future directions are beyond the scope of this proposal.
## Summary
Adding the ability for methods to declare that they don't accept a block will make
writing code against such methods safer and more resilient, and will prevent silently
ignored behaviour that is often hard to catch or troubleshoot.
--
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/