This code might be a little deceptive, but if you look closely
“options.select { |k, v| k == :b && options.delete(k)}.flatten” is just
creating an array out of selected keys and values. After that, the splat
operator (*) is being used to turn the array into parameters for the
Hash.[] function…which turns it back into a hash. Tada!
I note that in Ruby 1.9.1, Hash#select returns a hash, making this
weirdness unnecessary.