From: Wilson Bilkovich <wilsonb@...>
Date: 2006-02-05T06:17:24+09:00
Subject: Re: built-in vs. standard library

On 2/4/06, James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2006, at 2:57 PM, Mark Volkmann wrote:
>
> > I'm confused about whether the Date class is built-in or in the
> > standard library.
>
> It's a standard library.
>
> > I can use it without requiring it in irb, so that tells me it's
> > built-in.
>
> Na, that tells you that irb requires it somewhere.  :)
>

Actually, it's a little weirder than that.  I've wondered about it myself:

irb(main):001:0> Date.methods(false)
=> ["zone_to_diff", "_parse", "_strptime"]
irb(main):002:0> Date.today
NoMethodError: undefined method `today' for Date:Class
        from (irb):2
irb(main):003:0> require 'date'
=> true
irb(main):004:0> Date.today
=> #<Date: 4907541/2,0,2299161>
irb(main):005:0> Date.methods(false)
=> ["jd_to_ajd", "ld_to_jd", "ordinal", "ajd_to_amjd", "new0", "jd",
"valid_ordinal?", "exist2?", "e
xist?", "jd_to_civil", "jd_to_wday", "gregorian_leap?",
"valid_commercial?", "parse", "new3", "os?",
 "commercial_to_jd", "jd_to_mjd", "valid_civil?", "new",
"zone_to_diff", "jd_to_ordinal", "valid_jd?
", "commercial", "exist1?", "day_fraction_to_time", "jd_to_ld",
"julian_leap?", "today", "new2", "_p
arse", "existw?", "ordinal_to_jd", "amjd_to_ajd", "ns?",
"civil_to_jd", "ajd_to_jd", "valid_date?",
"new1", "_strptime", "jd_to_commercial", "mjd_to_jd", "strptime",
"exist3?", "time_to_day_fraction",
 "leap?", "civil", "_load", "neww"]
irb(main):006:0>