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Message: [QUOTE="Doug Beaver, post: 4411653"] hello, i'm looking for a nice idiomatic way to append to an array. i'm porting some encryption code from C to ruby, i don't have the code in front of me but a relevant example is below: def translate(str="") ret = [] str.each_byte { |byte| ret << byte } ret end bytes = [] bytes << translate("foo") bytes += translate("foo") p bytes i'm using ruby 1.6.8, btw... elsewhere in my code, i'm using << to append bytes onto the bytes array, but for the functions that return arrays of bytes, i have to use += to make sure the flattened values get added to the target array. if i use <<, it appends the array returned from the function back onto the target array. i'd like to use << everywhere as it makes the code more readable (imo), so is there some syntax i can throw in front of the translate() call to make the << do the right thing? i've considered both overloading Array.<< or making my own subclass and making a smarter <<. i realize that << can't tell if your intent is to append the array itself ([1,2,3]) or its values (1,2,3). i guess my real question is, can i get the desired behavior without making a subclass or redefining <<? i hope my question is clear... thanks, doug [/QUOTE]