From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2001-08-15T12:34:53+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:19754] Re: Why not?: Assigning to self

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:19749] Re: Why not?: Assigning to self"
    on 01/08/15, Ryo Furue <furufuru@ccsr.u-tokyo.ac.jp> writes:

|Thanks for pointing that out here!  In fact I knew that, but my
|misunderstanding was that we could, within an instance method, make
|self refer to a different object, as if
|
|    void meth(void*& self) { // reference to pointer
|       void* s = new String("hello");
|       self = s; // self now points to a String object.
|    }
|
|    void* a = new Array(3.14, 2.9);
|    meth(a);
|    cout << *(String*)a << '\n'; // prints "hello".
|
|This much was my misunderstanding.

Yes.  There's no such thing like "reference (in C++)" in Ruby.  I
consider it harmful.

|I think the correct interpretation
|would be something like
|
|   void meth(void* self) { // pointer
|      void* s = new String("hello");
|      self = s;
|      // self now points to a String object, but the effect
|      // doesn't propagate to the caller.  Would need to copy
|      // the String object into the memory pointed to by self.
|   }

And I think you agree that it's useless.

							matz.