From: Rand Waltzman <rand@...>
Date: 2006-09-17T20:24:03+09:00
Subject: irb question

Greetings All

I have a question about bindings in the irb when you load a file into 
it.  Here is a sample file I tried loading:

def hello
	puts "hello there"
end
jello = 42
puts jello

I load this file from the irb using: load 'test.rb'
The response is that it prints out the number 42.  So far so good.
If I type hello to the prompt, I get "hello there" as expected.  Also so 
far so good.  However, when I type jello I get the following message:

NameError: undefined local variable or method `jello' for main:Object
        from (irb):2

The question is, why was hello bound and jello not?

Another interesting phenomenon occurs if I type "hello = 42" to the 
interpreter, i.e., I try to rebind hello.  That seems to work fine as 
well.  If I type hello, I get 42 as expected.  However, if I try to 
reenter the definition of hello as I had it in the original file and try 
typing hello again, I still get 42.  The question is, why didn't it 
allow me to rebind hello?

Thanks for any help on this in advance.

Rand

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