From: Calamitas <calamitates@...>
Date: 2008-04-24T19:06:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Puzzeling little inconsistency

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just stumbled upon this, not sure what is going on here. BTW Ruby,
>  Ruby1.9 and JRuby behave all the like.
>
>  546/46 > cat syntax.rb && echo "--->" && ruby syntax.rb
>  module M
>   def % z
>     puts z
>   end
>   extend self
>   self % "Top"  # Line Fourty Two
>  end
>
>  extend M
>  % "Hi"
>  send "%", "Low"
>  o = Object.new.extend M
>  o % "Bottom"
>  --->
>  Top
>  Low
>  Bottom
>
>  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Additionally if you remove self from line Fourty Two, you get a synatx error.
>
>  syntax.rb:9: syntax error, unexpected tCONSTANT, expecting kEND
>  syntax.rb:13: syntax error, unexpected $end, expecting kEND
>  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  I am quite puzzled, any explanations?

I'm seeing the same behavior as you are, provided that I remove the
comment and add a space after "Hi".

The expressions starting with % are interpreted as string literals.
Because the following character is a space, it is used as a delimiter.
It is an unusual delimiter, but Ruby allows it.

Peter