From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-03-31T12:32:13-06:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:02309] Question about attribute writers


Given:

  class Fred
    def age
      @age
    end
    def age=(val)
      @age = val
    end
    def ageInMonths
      age * 12
    end
    def ageInMonths=(val)
      age = val / 12
    end
    def initialize(age)
      @age = age
    end
  end

  f = Fred.new(10)
  p f.age
  p f.ageInMonths
  f.ageInMonths = 300
  p f.age

I get

  10
  120
  10

The reason is that the assignment

   age = val/12

in Fred#ageInMonths= is creating a local variable 'age', rather than
invoking the age= method.

This seems inconsistent with the fact that

  age / 12

in Fred#ageInMonths is correctly using the attribute reading
function.


Is this the expected behavior?


Dave