[ruby-core:46344] [ruby-trunk - Bug #6723][Assigned] Global variable scoping problem.

Issue #6723 has been updated by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada).

Category changed from core to DOC
Status changed from Open to Assigned
Assignee changed from matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) to drbrain (Eric Hodel)
ruby -v changed from ruby 1.9.3p194 to -


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Bug #6723: Global variable scoping problem.
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/6723#change-27961

Author: iblue (Markus Fenske)
Status: Assigned
Priority: Normal
Assignee: drbrain (Eric Hodel)
Category: DOC
Target version: 2.0.0
ruby -v: -


This issue exists from 1.8 to ruby-head.

See the following example:

def foobar
  "Foobar".match(/^(\w*)/)
  puts $1.inspect
end

foobar
puts $1.inspect
puts global_variables.inspect

This demonstrates that $1 does not behave like a global variable. However it's listed by Kernel.global_variables as a global variable. And it's named like a global variable.

This leads to some confusion sometimes. See for example http://stackoverflow.com/q/11441782/773690

It may not be a good idea to fix this inconsistent naming, because it may break severaly things. However the fact that $1 and friends are not global variables should be clearly documented. And by the way: Ruby != Perl.

Or maybe make $1 a real global variable?


-- 
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