From: Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp2k@...>
Date: 2008-08-28T19:09:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Confused by scope in ruby

Mischa Fierer wrote:
> The number, as I would expect, stays at two, but the hash is actually
> changed by the method, as if I were passing it a pointer in C or
> something...

Well, that's exactly what's happening at C level - in both cases. The 
difference is that if you do foo[bar] = baz  or  foo.method_that_changes_foo!  
then you change the object that foo points to (so all other variables that 
point to the same object will also reflect those changes), but if you do
foo = bar, you're just changing the pointer, i.e. foo now points to wherever 
bar points to and the object that it previously pointed to is unchanged.

HTH,
Sebastian
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