A reader method that returns the value of an instance variable and then resets it to nil

Posted by snl on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by snl
Published on 2010-04-02T16:32:41Z Indexed on 2010/04/02 17:03 UTC
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Is there a shorter (and cleaner) way to write the following reader method:

class Foo
  attr_writer :bar

  def bar
    return_value = @bar
    self.bar = nil
    return_value
  end
end

Here's some output on the console to show what it does:

>> foo = Foo.new
=> #<Foo:0x1010e9cf8>
>> foo.bar
=> nil
>> foo.bar = "ok"
=> "ok"
>> foo.bar
=> "ok"
>> foo.bar
=> nil

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