title: what does a ||= mean in Ruby language?
body: <blockquote>
    <p><strong>Possible Duplicate:</strong><br>
    <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/995593/what-does-mean-in-ruby">What does ||= mean in Ruby?</a>  </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  
  
  <p>what does the below line mean?</p>
  
  <pre><code>a ||= {} 
  a ||= 1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>in irb it always returns the class of a, as hash, for both the above lines.
  Thanks in advance.</p>