From: Eero Saynatkari <ruby-forum-reg@...>
Date: 2005-12-27T08:31:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Forwardable  -- :[]   -- :@what

Warren Seltzer wrote:
> Reading about Forwardable I was shocked to see strange symbol-looking 
> notations I'd never
> seen before.  Nothing the pickaxe led me to believe that :[] or 
> :@variable was valid Ruby.
> I've since figured out, I think, what it must mean but I'm wondering: 
> What other crazy
> syntax am I going to have to figure out?  And does :[] simply name a 
> function, as I think?

:<something> just indicates the variable being a Symbol,
just like the quotes in 'something' indicates that variable
to be a String. A Symbol does not intrinsically refer to a
method, it is just a name (you could just as well use a String):

  foo.send :foobar_method   # is equivalent to
  foo.send 'foobar_method'

So, conceptually, :[] is more or less the same as '[]'
and it may, indeed, be good to think of a Symbol as a
kind of an immutable String :)

> Will I be seeing :&, :**, :) and so on?  Or even :-)  ?

Well, (:-) is valid as the minus operator..

> Shocked, simply shocked...

Ha! Wait until you start constructing Symbols using the
implicit String conversion:

  :'This is a Symbol too'

> Warren Seltzer


E

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