Ruby * operator before array [duplicate]

Answer 1

* is the splat operator. It is used to split an array into a list of arguments.

line.split(/=|;/) returns an array. To create a Hash, each element of the array must be passed as an individual parameter.

Answer 2

it's a splat operator Read about it. Often times you see it used when you want to split up an array to use as parameters of a function.