From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2006-08-02T06:40:56+09:00
Subject: Re: I thought this was the one that worked?

On Wed, Aug 02, 2006 at 06:33:33AM +0900, Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 02, 2006 at 06:00:07AM +0900, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:
> > On Wed, 2 Aug 2006, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > 
> > >>it's not that there is no 'a', it's that there is no enclosing scope.  the
> > >>beginning of the 'def' introduces a new scope that is not 'contained' by 
> > >>the
> > >>previous one.  this is basic ruby.
> > >
> > >. . .
> > >
> > >What does that have to do with anything?
> > 
> > because in the original code
> > 
> >   a = 42
> > 
> >   def m
> >     puts a
> >   end
> > 
> > 'a' will only be lexically scoped - and throw and error of course.  the
> > previous def of 'a' is totally superfluous - i was just pointing out that 
> > the
> > failure of ruby to find 'a' is going to be a failure of lexical scoping 
> > rules
> > because there is no enclosing scope (well nothing named in it yet) where an
> > 'a' is defined.
> 
> Ahh, I see where you were going.  You were demonstrating that the "a" in
> the scope of "m" is separate from the "a" outside of it, but didn't
> really explicitly state that.  I have a tendency to forget that def
> creates a "new top level" scope, and need reminders.

gsub /state/, 'explain'

I apologize for any confusion my imprecise phrasing may have caused.


> 
> I'm relieved to discover that Ruby isn't defaulting to dynamic scope in
> the previous example after all.  Thanks for the explanation.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to
build programs out of the wrong concepts." - Paul Graham