From: Lloyd Zusman <ljz@...>
Date: 2004-07-31T10:16:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Forward references?

Sam McCall <tunah.usenet@tunah.net> writes:

> 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.
> In ruby, function definitions are code that gets executed, rather than
> declarations that get found in the source file and put into a table.
> So basically, the definitions have to come before the code that uses
> them (but not before the definition of the methods that use them) in the
> program flow. Therefore, if you want the main code at the top of the
> file, put it in an END block or a method as already mentioned, or in a
> separate file etc.
> Defining stubs at the top won't work, because your main code runs before
> the methods are redefined.
> Sam

Thank you very much, and thanks to all the rest of you for your helpful
replies.  Based on all this, I have settled on the following approach,
which I have mentioned earlier in this thread:

  def main
    # my main routine
    #
    # ... etc. ...
    #
    return (exitcode)  ### or this:  exit(exitcode)
  end

  def function1
    # ... etc. ...
  end

  def function2
    # ... etc. ...
  end
 
  # other functions ...

  # final line ...
  exit(main)

    

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com
 God bless you.