From: Jay Levitt Date: 2005-07-26T12:11:00+09:00 Subject: Re: Trying to understand symbols In article , dblack@wobblini.net says... > The :foo in send(:foo) is just a symbol (instance of Symbol :-). It > has no special status beyond that. It happens to match the name of a > method, but the symbol object has no relation to that method. Really? Is that always true - a Ruby symbol is essentially a C enum except that you can't define an int value for it? So that would mean that Rails's use of symbols (e.g. attr_reader :foo) is just a convention, and Rails uses the symbol-name to go look up an Object with the same name, thus appearing to releate the Symbol to the Object? -- Jay Levitt | Wellesley, MA | I feel calm. I feel ready. I can only Faster: jay at jay dot fm | conclude that's because I don't have a http://www.jay.fm | full grasp of the situation. - Mark Adler