From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2001-03-31T05:48:56+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:13364] Re: Ruby does not take space in array reference

Tigger <tigger_pooh@MailAndNews.com> writes:

> >|Is this the intended behavior?  I like putting in lost of white space into
> >|code that I write, and would like to reference the array as a [0] rather
> >|than a[0].
> >
> >Yes.  It's intended.  Ruby is very sensitive to existence of space(s).
> 
> I guess my question is: Does it have to be this way?

I can't speak for Matz, but one possible problem is the ambiguity:

   a [ 1 ]

Is this a call to the [] method in 'a', or is it a call to a method
called 'a' passing in as a parameter an array with one element?

   def a(param)
     "In a, param = #{param.inspect}"
   end

   a = Array.new
   a << 22 << 33

   a[1]      #=> 33
   a [1]     #=> "In a, param = [1]"

Remember that other languages have rules about whitespace too. It's
just that Ruby is different in that method names may look like
operators.



Regards


Dave