From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2008-08-29T06:43:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Please don't flame me...why is there no "++" in Ruby again ?

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 11:25 PM, Joel VanderWerf
<vjoel@path.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> John Pritchard-williams wrote:
>>
>> There's must be very good simple reason why there is no 'x++' method
>> Ruby right?
>>
>> Just generally interested why there isn't....
>>
>> I did check my Ruby books by the way, but they just "unlike C there is
>> no ++ operator in Ruby...." :)
>
> In ruby, operators are methods and they operate on objects, not on
> variables.
... and as Integers are immutable ++ cannot change the underlying object.
One could define ++ if one wanted, but it can only work on mutable objects

class MyInteger
  def initialize int;  @int = int end
  define_method "++" do @int += 1 end
  def to_s; @int.to_s end
end

m = MyInteger.new 41
puts m
m.send "++"
puts m


Cheers
Robert


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--
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