Ruby + recursive function + defining global variable - ruby

Question

I am pulling bitbucket repo list using Ruby. The response from bitbucket will contain only 10 repositories and a marker for the next page where there will be another 10 repos and so on ... (they call it pagination)
So, I wrote a recursive function which calls itself if the next page marker is present. This will continue until it reaches the last page.
Here is my code:
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby
require 'net/http'
require 'json'
require 'awesome_print'
#repos = Array.new
def recursive(url)
### here goes my net/http code which connects to bitbucket and pulls back the response in a JSON as request.body
### hence, removing this code for brevity
hash = JSON.parse(response.body)
hash["values"].each do |x|
#repos << x["links"]["self"]["href"]
end
if hash["next"]
puts "next page exists"
puts "calling recusrisve with: #{hash["next"]}"
recursive(hash["next"])
else
puts "this is the last page. No more recursions"
end
end
repo_list = recursive('https://my_bitbucket_url')
#repos.each {|x| puts x}
Now, my code works fine and it lists all the repos.
Question:
I am new to Ruby, so I am not sure about the way I have used the global variable #repos = Array.new above. If I define the array in function, then each call to the function will create a new array overwriting its contents from previous call.
So, how do the Ruby programmers use a global symbol in such cases. Does my code obey Ruby ethics or is it something really amateur (yet correct because it works) way of doing it.

Answer 1

The consensus is to avoid global variables as much as possible.
I would either build the collection recursively like this:
def recursive(url)
### ...
result = []
hash["values"].each do |x|
result << x["links"]["self"]["href"]
end
if hash["next"]
result += recursive(hash["next"])
end
result
end
or hand over the collection to the function:
def recursive(url, result = [])
### ...
hash["values"].each do |x|
result << x["links"]["self"]["href"]
end
if hash["next"]
recursive(hash["next"], result)
end
result
end
Either way you can call the function
repo_list = recursive(url)
And I would write it like this:
def recursive(url)
# ...
result = hash["values"].map { |x| x["links"]["self"]["href"] }
result += recursive(hash["next"]) if hash["next"]
result
end