From: Rob Biedenharn <Rob@...>
Date: 2006-12-19T01:16:54+09:00
Subject: Re: item order in Object#methods

On Dec 18, 2006, at 10:32 AM, Andrea Fazzi wrote:
> Rob Biedenharn wrote:
>>
>> If it's important, why not sort them first:
>>    self.methods.sort.collect { ... }
>
> Because I'm interested to the methods' definition order inside the  
> class not to the alphabetical order of methods' name. The names  
> init_1, init_2, etc. were just an example.
>
> Andrea

I'd not be surprised to hear (from someone who actually knows rather  
than speculates ;-) that the methods are stored in a hash and there  
is no definite order to them.  As for the order in which they were  
defined, that's just the order in which they were encountered.

When I run the code from your first message:
rab:ruby $ ruby init_2.rb
Method init_3 called!
Method init_4 called!
Method init_5 called!
Method init_6 called!
Method init_1 called!
Method init_2 called!

It's not even the same order as yours (although it is consistent when  
I run it multiple times).  If the lookup is really hash-based,  
defining other methods could "shuffle" these around if the underlying  
hash table was expanded. (I'm using "hash" in its algorithmic sense,  
not a Ruby class.)

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn		http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com