meaning of * in ruby function

Question

I have a basic question about the mearning of * in a function call which I haven't been able to understand from online docs:

def self.new(*args, &block)

What does *args mean in the function call above?

Answer 1

It means you can pass any number of arguments that will be stored in args table inside of this method. Take a look: https://endofline.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/the-strange-ruby-splat/

Answer 2

consider a following method

def user(user_name)
  puts user_name
end

so when you call

user("RPV")

Output: 
RPV
=> nil

but what if you pass more then one argument like

user("RPV", "Marek")

it will give an error

wrong number of arguments (2 for 1)

To avoid this kind of error splat(*) operator is helpful

def user(*user_name)
  puts user_name
end

and when you pass more than one argument it handles converts it in array

user("RPV", "Marek")

output:
RPV
Marek
nil

it makes user_name as an array

def user(user_name)
  p user_name
end

user("RPV", "Marek")

output:

 ["RPV", "Marek"]

Hope you got the use of it.