From: David Alan Black <dblack@...>
Date: 2001-09-26T08:18:40+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:21698] Re: Help understanding self ...

Hello --

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Phil Mitchell wrote:

> Okay, but according to Ruby library reference, and pickaxe, [] is a method in
> class Hash. A method that is called with no receiver is sent to self. So, []
> is not exactly a method. Then, how should I understand it?

Hash#[] is definitely a method.  That's not the issue; the issue is whether
a given [] is a method *call*.

In this case:

  class Hash
    def thing
      [1]
    end
  end

that "[1]" is an array.  That's how the parser sees it.  So there's no
method call, therefore no violation of the rule that a method called
with no receiver is sent to self.

It comes down to finding a way for "[]" to mean different things.
Where there might be ambiguity, some decision has to be made.  Another
example is:

  puts class

This causes an error, because even though there's a method
Object#class, the bare "class" is parsed as the keyword "class",
and then having nothing come after it makes no sense.  It's not
a call to method #class that behaves strangely; it's not a method
call at all.


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav