From: Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@...>
Date: 2007-06-02T12:56:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Is [ ] really a method ?

On Jun 1, 2007, at 11:42 PM, Vin Raja wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Well while running down the text I read that [] (used in case  
> Arrays and
> Hashes) is actually a method called on that Array/hash object and also
> that it can be overridden.
>
> well point taken.
>
> BUT if this is just another case of operator overloading then how come
> we can call
>
>  a[1]='item'
>
> rather than calling
>
>  a[]1 ='item'
>
> (Anyways this gave me a syntax error)
> Or perhaps it is just another case of Syntactic Sugar?
> Or perhaps not, because if that has to be true than the second  
> statement
> should also have been true.
>
> So Is [] really a method or is a simple grammar token?

You are really asking about []= which is a different method than [].  
And, yes, it really is a method, as is shown by

a = ['a']
a.[]=(1, 'b')
a # => ["a", "b"]

which is the same as

a = ['a']
a[1] = 'b'
a # => ["a", "b"]

Regards, Morton