From: Gary Wright <gwtmp01@...>
Date: 2007-03-18T05:44:30+09:00
Subject: Re: inheritance question


On Mar 17, 2007, at 3:34 PM, Corey Konrad wrote:
> i still didnt understand
> why it was happening because i didnt understand how to use the super
> method correctly, i looked it up doing a ri super and there was no  
> info
> that shed light on the issue either so i asked on here.

Your thought to look at 'ri super' makes sense.  Unfortunately, 'super'
isn't actually a method, although it looks like one.  It is actually
a keyword that is part of the language syntax in the same way that
'class' and 'end' are in:

    class Animal
    end

The 'ri' tool is only helpful in looking up actual methods and
doesn't really help at all with the underlying language structure
and semantics.  Other things that look like methods but that you
won't find explained via 'ri' are:

	yield
	next
	break
	return

and so on. Best to use the index of the Pickaxe or Ruby Way or some
other Ruby reference for these types of things.

I wonder if it might make sense to have the standard Ruby documentation
include basic information on keywords and  incorporate that into
the ri/rdoc documentation set.

Gary Wright