From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2008-02-05T06:21:21+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby syntax question

Alle Monday 04 February 2008, grz01@spray.se ha scritto:
> Hi,
>
> While debugging some ruby-code, I found a mis-typed construct like the
> following,
> which looks like a syntax error to me,
> but when you run it in irb it evaluates to nil and does NOT raise an
> error:
>
> x = def
>  puts xyz
> end
>
> (where xyz is undefined)
> Anyone can explain what the above code means to ruby?
>
> In contrast, this code DOES raise a syntax error:
>
> x = def
>  puts "xyz"
> end
>
> My versions is:
> irb 0.9.5(05/04/13)
> ruby 1.8.6 (2007-03-13 patchlevel 0) [i386-mswin32]
>
> TIA,
> ---------------------------  grz01

I'm not sure, but I think ruby, seeing a newline after a def, expects the 
statement to go on on the following line, just as when you write

1+2+
3

or 

my_method(a, b, 
c)

The first piece of code would be translated into

x = def puts xyz
end

that is to the definition of a method called puts which takes one parameter, 
named xyz (the x= part plays no role in this matter).

In the second case, ruby tries to do the same, but finds a string where it 
would expect the argument name, so throws an exception.

Stefano