From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2004-06-28T20:38:01+09:00
Subject: Re: (oddity) applying objects with #call() implicitly


"gabriele renzi" <surrender_it@remove.yahoo.it> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:f6pvd0ldf65contvqdldtjq5hjcracc0tq@4ax.com...
> Hi gurus and nubys,
>
> lurking comp.lang.misc, I noticed this message:
> http://tinyurl.com/2q8c7
>
> and suddenly had the vision to have that in ruby too.
> What I'm talking about is application of callable objects.
> As of now we have to explicitly write:
>
> callable.call arg1, arg2
>
> and it feels ugly.
>
> I was going to ask if we could have this:
> callable arg1,arg2 # implicitly looks for #call
> callable           # the callable object
> callable()         # forces application with zero arguments
> ...
>
> what's wrong with this?

Ambiguity.  "callable arg1,arg2" denotes an invocation of the method
"callable" of "self".  "callable()" also invokes the same method albeit
without arguments.

However, you can use #[] like this:

>> callable = lambda {|*args| puts "Seen #{args.inspect}"}
=> #<Proc:0x10178a18@(irb):6>
>> callable[ "foo", "bar" ]
Seen ["foo", "bar"]
=> nil

Regards

    robert