From: Julian Fondren <julian@...>
Date: 1999-01-16T23:11:11-06:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:00191] defining self causes a segmentation fault

Hello,

In ruby you can't change the value of self, and I just learned this,
because of the following:


ruby0> def ls(self='.')
ruby1>     print `gnuls --color -aFx #{self}`
ruby1> end
(eval):0: [BUG] Segmentation fault


Of course the above doesn't really explain what the problem was, but I
experimented some more and found that even this:


ruby0> self=nil


will - also when defining it to 0, or 'some string', result in this:


(eval):0: [BUG] Segmentation fault


And then in the drawing up of this email I found:


$ ruby
self=nil
-:1: Can't change the value of self
self=nil
     ^
-:1: [BUG] Segmentation fault


which partially explains things. I assume here that this is some kind of
bug and that ruby isn't supposed to segfault on an attempt to define
self.. though maybe it is. Also this might be restricted to my machine -
something I have certainly seen before - or at least the segfault part
might. Anyway, what's the deal here?


thanks,