From: Mark Sparshatt <msparshatt@...>
Date: 2004-07-30T23:45:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Forward references?

Lloyd Zusman wrote:

>Is there a way to define forward references to functions?  Due to my own
>personal eccentricities, I like to have the main body of a program
>appear at the top of its source file, and the functions it uses at the
>end.
>
>By "define forward reference", I mean something analogous to the
>following C construct:
>
>  static char* foo();  /* forward reference */
>  static char* bar();  /* forward reference */
>
>  main () {
>    printf("%s\n", foo());
>    printf("%s\n", bar());
>    exit(0);
>  }
>
>  char* foo() {
>    return ("foo");
>  }
>
>  char* bar() {
>    return ("bar");
>  }
>
>If I could make use of forward references in ruby, the above program
>could look something like this:
>
>  # somehow, define a forward reference to function foo()
>
>  # somehow, define a forward reference to function bar()
>
>  # program starts here
>
>  x = foo()
>  y = bar()
>  puts x
>  puts y
>  exit(0)
>
>  # real function definitions ...
>
>  def foo
>    return "foo"
>  end
>
>  def bar
>    return "bar"
>  end
>
>  
>
Since Ruby doesn't check whether the functions exist until the code that 
calls them is actually run, one way to do this would be

def main
  puts foo
  puts bar
  exit(0)
end

def foo
  return "foo"
end

def bar
  return "bar"
end

main

--
Mark Sparshatt