%w{ models }.each do |dir| in Rails means?

Question

In Rails guide this came up:

%w{ models }.each do |dir|

Could someone explain for me what %w{ models } means? Never seen it before. Is it ruby or rails specific.

Thanks

Answer 1

%w{ foo bar baz } creates an array ["foo", "bar", "baz"], it's a shortcut to save typing some quotes and commas. %{ models } just creates an array ["models"], which does seem slightly superfluous, but is probably just for keeping the style consistent (?).

Answer 2

%w allows you to create an array out of a string of words delimited by a space. here is an example:

irb(main):001:0> %w{ foo bar baz }.each { |word| puts word }
foo
bar
baz
=> ["foo", "bar", "baz"]

Here is a decent reference. It is a Ruby-ism, not specific to Rails