From: Tobias Reif <tobiasreif@...>
Date: 2002-01-09T00:45:50+09:00
Subject: Re: chaining methods

David Alan Black wrote:

>  In #height=,
> why add_attributes(...) instead of @height = value.to_s ?


because
   add_attributes(...)
does something else than assigning to @height.

I could use @height, but that would be indirect and require a little 
more code in the specific context, AFAICS.

In the superclass REXML::Element, it's defined as

def add_attributes hash
   hash.each_pair {|key, value| @attributes[key] = value }
end

So I could do
   @attributes['height']=value.to_s
or
   add_attributes('height'=>value.to_s)

The second is 4 chars longer, but a bit more expressive IMHO.

Tobi

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