From: marc <gmane@...>
Date: 2008-05-01T22:24:22+09:00
Subject: Re: References in Ruby

Marcin Tyman said...

> I was quite a bit confused when write following code:
> 
> a = 10
> b = a
> a = 50
> 
> puts b   # -> puts 10
> 
> Why?? Since everything is a reference in Ruby I expected "puts 50".

The way I think of it is that 10 and 50 are objects. So,

1. a = 10 # a -> the object 10
2. b = a  # b -> the object 10
3. a = 50 # a -> the object 50
4. puts b # -> 10

And Mikael's explanation helps too, imo:

>> a = "Hello" => "Hello"
>> b = a => "Hello"
>> a.upcase! => "HELLO"
>> b => "HELLO"

-- 
Cheers,
Marc