From: dblack@...
Date: 2007-09-16T19:17:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie help

Hi --

On Sun, 16 Sep 2007, 7stud -- wrote:

> 7stud -- wrote:
>> The symbol argument
>> should refer to a string, and that string should be the name of a
>> method.  send() then executes the method:
>
> After editing that sentence a couple of times, I completely changed the
> meaning into something quite confusing.  A symbol *always* refers to a
> string.  That should read:

I'm not sure I'd put it that way. A symbol, like a string, can always
be represented by characters, but I don't think a symbol actually
refers to a string, any more than the string refers to the symbol. But
I may be misunderstanding what you mean.

> The symbol argument should refer to a string that is the name of a
> method.  To create that symbol you take the method name and put a ":" in
> front of it.

send takes a string too:

   obj.send("some_method")

so if you've got the name of a method as a string in a variable, you
can just use that directly.


David

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