From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2001-09-26T10:27:34+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:21704] Re: strange behaviors

"Avdi B. Grimm" <avdi@avdi.org> writes:

>   def explicit_assign
>     self.bar = "explicitly assigned"
>   end
> 
> So, as far as I can tell, private setter methods are completely
> inaccessible. This seems sub-optimal, but maybe I'm missing something.

You _could_ use

   self.send :bar=, "explicitly assigned"



The reason for this is to do with the fact that Ruby implicitly
creates local variables when it sees an assignment.

  a = 1

Will _always_ be taken as an assignment to a local variable, and never
as a method invocation. It's a compromise.


Dave