What are those pipe symbols for in Ruby?

Question

What are the pipe symbols for in Ruby?

I\'m learning Ruby and RoR, coming from a PHP and Java background, but I keep coming across code like this:

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Answer 1

@names.each do |name|
  puts "Hello #{name}!"
end

at http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/4/ is accompanied by this explanation:

each is a method that accepts a block of code then runs that block of code for every element in a list, and the bit between do and end is just such a block. A block is like an anonymous function or lambda. The variable between pipe characters is the parameter for this block.

What happens here is that for every entry in a list, name is bound to that list element, and then the expression puts "Hello #{name}!" is run with that name.