From: MonkeeSage <MonkeeSage@...>
Date: 2006-09-25T04:45:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Riddle me this (a question about expressions)

Patrick Toomey wrote:
> Someone else gave the example of simplifying my question down to the
> equivalent of trying the following
>
> x = return 9
>
> Why shouldn't this be valid?  As shown above, raise seems to return
> nil, and return seems like it should return a similar value if there
> is no other reasonable return value.  Just for my own curiosity, what
> implications would returning "nil" have?  Anyway, thanks for all your
> help.  I realize most of this is of academic value, but it really
> helps to see how Ruby works underneath.

Hi Patrick,

I've no idea what goes on under the hood, but I would think it is
because raise doesn't exit the current stack frame (it can be rescued
and execution continues), so it's more like a method that gets
evaluated and its return (nil) then gets assigned (nb: right hand side
of assignment is always resolved before it is assigned). But return
(and I assume break / next) break out of the current stack frame, so
the assignment is left dangling. That's my guess.

Regards,
Jordan