From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2005-06-27T04:56:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Defining a method vs aliasing it

Hi --

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 gwtmp01@mac.com wrote:

>
> On Jun 25, 2005, at 7:33 AM, leon breedt wrote:
>> I'm not exactly sure why defining a method with "def methodname"
>> versus aliasing it would behave differently.
>
> It is my understanding that 'alias' doesn't behave in the sense that
> it creates two method names that reference the same definition.  Instead
> it creates a new method and duplicates the definition of the old message.
> The resulting method is completely independent of the original method.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something (probably) but there seems to be a semantic
> mismatch between the word 'alias' and the behavior of the method 'alias'.
>
> Shouldn't it be called dup_method or something similar?

I believe it's the other way around: aliasing a method name just adds
another name for the same method.  If you then redefine the original
method, the two names then point to different methods:

   class C
     def x; end
     alias :y :x               # y and x are the same method
     def x; "new method"; end  # they are not the same
   end

At least that's always been my understanding of it.


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net