Fetch: two approaches for setting a default value

When using #fetch to assign a default value, the default can be passed either as an argument or as a block.

What are the implications for choosing one approach over the other?

# Option 1: block
setting = settings.fetch('key') { default_setting }

#Option 2: argument
setting = settings.fetch('key', default_setting)

When the default value is passed as a block, it is only evaluated when needed (lazy evaluation).

The argument approach could lead to serious performance issues if the default is an expensive operation.

Written on March 24, 2016 by bryanmacdiarmid