From: Daniel Brockman <daniel@...>
Date: 2005-07-26T17:34:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Trying to understand symbols

Martin DeMello <martindemello@yahoo.com> writes:

>> 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?
>
> It's a common ruby convention, but yes, attr_reader
> etc. are just methods that take Symbol arguments, and
> could have been written to take String args instead.

In fact, they do take string arguments.

   class Foo
     attr_accessor "bar"
   end

   foo = Foo.new
   foo.bar = 123
   foo.bar #=> 123

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>

    So really, we all have to ask ourselves:
    Am I waiting for RMS to do this?   --TTN.