[ruby-core:81798] [Ruby trunk Feature#13683] Add strict Enumerable#single

[shannonskipper@gmail.com]

Issue #13683 has been updated by shan (Shannon Skipper).


shevegen (Robert A. Heiler) wrote:
> What would the results be for the following code? In ruby (I find
> it easier to read ruby code rather than the description actually):
> 
>     [].single
>     [1].single
>     [1,2].single
>     [1,2,3].single
> 
>     {}.single
>     {cat: 'Tom'}.single
>     {cat: 'Tom', mouse: 'Jerry'}.single
> 
>     (And any other Enumerable objects I may have forgotten here.)

I wrote a quick implementation before realizing there was a link to a Rails PR. Here are the results of your examples (and one added):

~~~
module Enumerable
  def single
    if one?
      first
    else
      if block_given?
        yield
      else
        raise "wrong collection size (actual #{size || count}, expected 1)"
      end
    end
  end
end

[].single
#!> RuntimeError: wrong collection size (actual 0, expected 1)

[1].single
#=> 1

[1,2].single
#!> RuntimeError: wrong collection size (actual 2, expected 1)

[1,2,3].single
#!> RuntimeError: wrong collection size (actual 3, expected 1)

{}.single
#!> RuntimeError: wrong collection size (actual 0, expected 1)

{cat: 'Tom'}.single
#=> [:cat, "Tom"]

{cat: 'Tom', mouse: 'Jerry'}.single
#!> RuntimeError: wrong collection size (actual 2, expected 1)

[].single { 42 }
#=> 42
~~~


----------------------------------------
Feature #13683: Add strict Enumerable#single
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/13683#change-65495

* Author: dnagir (Dmytrii Nagirniak)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: 
* Target version: 
----------------------------------------
### Summary

This is inspired by other languages and frameworks, such as LINQ's [Single](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb155325%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) (pardon MSDN reference), which has very big distinction between `first` and `single` element of a
collection.
- `first` normally returns the top element, and the developer assumes
  there could be many;
- `single` returns one and only one element, and it is an error if there
  are none or more than one.

We, in Ruby world, very often write `fetch_by('something').first`
assuming there's only one element that can be returned there.

But in majority of the cases, we really want a `single` element.

The problems with using `first` in this case:
- developer needs to explicitly double check the result isn't `nil`
- in case of corrupted data (more than one item returned), it will never
  be noticed

`Enumerable#single` addresses those problems in a very strong and
specific way that may save the world by simply switching from `first` to
`single`.

### Other information

- we may come with a better internal implementation (than `self.map`)
- better name could be used, maybe `only` is better, or a bang version?
- re-consider the "block" implementation in favour of a separate method (`single!`, `single_or { 'default' }`)


The original implementation is on the ActiveSupport https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/26206
But it was suggested to discuss the possibility of adding it to Ruby which would be amazing.



-- 
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