From: Dave Burt <dave@...>
Date: 2005-05-07T12:39:26+09:00
Subject: Re: object reference handle (like perl's reference to scalar)

"Eric Mahurin" <eric_mahurin@yahoo.com> queried:

>> (ref.rb)

>I tried this out and it doesn't seem to do anything.  I did a
> require "delegate" followed by the code below.  Could you give
> a concrete example - working on mutable (string or array) and
> immediate obects (i.e. Fixnum).  Even if you get this to work
> on the mutable objects, I don't see it working on the immediate
> objects.


# require 'ref'

irb(main):030:0> a = 1.ref
=> 1
irb(main):031:0> a.ref = 2   # []= is a synonym for ref=
=> 2
irb(main):032:0> a    # here you can see the ref delegates inspect to the 
number 2
=> 2
irb(main):033:0> a + 1  # and + is delegated too
=> 3
irb(main):034:0> a.class  # class, kind_of?, is_a? and respond_to? aren't
=> Ref
irb(main):035:0> a.deref.class   # [] is a synonym for deref
=> Fixnum

Maybe ref= should be called deref=. But there it is.

Cheers,
Dave