From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2008-10-30T01:12:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Bug or not a bug? array*=int

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 8:30 AM, Kyle Schmitt <kyleaschmitt@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I'm wondering, is this a bug, or not a bug, or a type-o in the docs?
>
> According to http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Array.html
> array*int  "[R]eturns a new array built by concatenating the int
> copies of self."
> Copies should be brand new independent copies, right?

No, copies are shallow copies. Consider, for example

irb(main):002:0> class A; attr_accessor :a; end
=> nil
irb(main):003:0> a = A.new
=> #<A:0xb7c65b44>
irb(main):004:0> a.a = 10
=> 10
irb(main):005:0> foo = [a]
=> [#<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=10>]
irb(main):006:0> foo *= 3
=> [#<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=10>, #<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=10>, #<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=10>]
irb(main):007:0> a.a = 20
=> 20
irb(main):008:0> foo
=> [#<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=20>, #<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=20>, #<A:0xb7c65b44 @a=20>]

martin