Issue #19979 has been updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). Regarding #15554 I think that has the significant advantage that it does not require any changes in gems to be useful. It just automatically knows if a method accepts a block or not. ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-105114 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by rubyFeedback (robert heiler). Personally I never saw such an error and can not recall having made such an error either. I also never had a need to prevent passing of blocks, but I also agree that there may be situations where one may specifically want to disable that, even though I personally never had such a use case. I think the only times when I had issues with calling parent methods, and it confused me, was when I used super() versus super without the (). Since then I, oddly enough, transitioned towards using super() as default (unless I need the behaviour of super without () specifically). If we reason that ruby is to be a flexible language, then I think we can reason that ruby should have a way to disallow passing a block, just as you, as a ruby developer, can decide on how many arguments a method should accept, including keyword arguments (which, by the way, also confused me when I first saw them; I also dislike when a third party API demands of me to use keyword arguments - I always felt that an option hash is less restrictive and in some ways equivalent.) Note that personally I am not a huge fan of the &nil, but I also don't want to be too discouraging. One concern I have is that it may still confuse users, when they see &block and then &nil and then &urmom ... not sure I am a huge fan of that. I kind of default to &block - somehow to me this is the most sensible name for a block variable to be had. If others use &nil, in their code base - well, they can do what they want to in their code base. I only focus on trying to maintain my own ruby code and hope that there is some sanity in what I maintain. :) But, the TL;DR, I agree that it does not seem to be too common, at the least I can not recall having seen it before. I don't know all the ruby code out there, though. I kind of agree with that, but I suppose this may be a long term suggestion and change, so you could re-evaluate in, say +3 years. It may not be too overly common though; I can not think of any real use case I have where I specifically need to prevent passing of a block. To me I always treated block variables as a nice, additional argument to allow for more flexibility, rather than as a basic-must-have that is the main driving factor for designing APIs, libraries and use cases. I do not think that "only on ruby 3.3" is a necessary exclusive criterium, though. For instance, I try to keep my code always up-to-date with the latest ruby xmas release. Sometimes I may try to maintain backwards compatibility, but it is never my primary focus. I always default with MRI these days; it simply is easier to do so. (I understand that some implementations lag behind, e. g. jruby - I think they are still not at 3.2 or so if I recall headius' summary-issue-tracker for it.) Understandable as well, but I would like to point out that raising an error may not necessarily always be that useful or necessary. For instance, I tend to not care too much about block variables, so I rarely ever raise an error about it. At best I may give a notice to the user, but that's about it for block variables usually. Agreed. I actually also never used **nil so far. zverok wrote: Agreed, but matz also discussed this before, so there may be a use case, even if it may be very small. zverok wrote: I think that can be tweaked, e. g. like rubocop styling rules. Any linter that would tell me to sprinkle my sane code via &nil I'd throw out the door though. ;) zverok wrote: That's from 5 years ago or so. Perhaps it may be useful to have it at an upcoming developer meeting, discussed, and then also someone who feels motivated and has time, to explain the decision making towards pro or con of it anyway, since that seems to be missing slightly (or, at the least, the context has not been put down in detail; ufuk here may have given the biggest summary so far about it; also note that ko1 in #15554 also mentioned a warning rather than the raise ArgumentError as pointed out by eregon. I guess it comes down to how you want to treat block variables in general, which is a design consideration of ruby.) ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-105116 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu) wrote in #note-6: A static analyzer could detect a `raise ... if block_given?` if at the start of a method/not under any other control flow. Regarding `eval("yield")` probably we should have a way to mark methods using a block in a very hidden way like that, just adding `&block` would be enough (or maybe even just `&`). I would suspect very few places use that (template engines do, though), so it'd be OK to warn until they explicitly declare a block might be used. I think it'd be good to use `raise ... if block_given?` for these methods which are unclear whether they accept a block. We'd want to solve it for these particular mock library methods before Ruby 3.6, no? ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-105120 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by kddnewton (Kevin Newton). I'm +1 on this proposal. Anything that makes the implicit block more explicit. On the static analysis point, a static analyzer can't detect that without knowing if `raise` and `block_given?` are not overridden. With `&nil` it would be explicit, and we could build up common knowledge around it. I'm not particularly worried about the proliferation of it, as we haven't seen that with `**nil` either. But in the cases where it is necessary, it's nice to have that option. I'm not sure I understand the point about Ruby 3.6 - that point could be made to try to refute any syntax addition. We're going to have a Ruby 3.6 anyway, we may as well have it with `&nil`. ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-105154 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto). Honestly, '&nil' isn't very appealing looking, but I'm willing to accept this suggestion because I was hoping for a way to explicitly indicate that a method won't accept a block. There is already an equally unattractive `**nil` notation in use, so that's no reason to reject it. Matz. ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-106895 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada). https://github.com/nobu/ruby/tree/nil-blockarg ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-106907 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme). Eregon (Benoit Daloze) wrote in #note-14: +1 ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-106916 * 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). From https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20436#note-12: @ufuk wrote: `#parameters` represents the parameters defined in the source code, so it does not seem the right place. Also I would think alternative Ruby implementations might not want to implement the check of #15554 (or not immediately), as it is essentially a warning to help developers but likely requires a significant effort to implement. So if a predicate is provided for this I think it should be clearly marked as implementation-specific. What would you use this predicate for? ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-108196 * Author: ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- ## 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: 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/

Issue #19979 has been updated by Eregon (Benoit Daloze). True, OTOH the trade-offs made in #15554 like every method using `super` considered to "accept a block" might not be suitable for static analysis. And it's also fairly easy to find whether a method uses `yield` and has a block parameter, e.g. using Prism. ---------------------------------------- Feature #19979: Allow methods to declare that they don't accept a block via `&nil` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19979#change-108199 * Author: ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- ## 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: 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/