From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2009-05-03T02:13:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Help me understand 'self' vs current object

On Saturday 02 May 2009, C. Dagnon wrote:

> |The easy solution is to change is_deleted everywhere to self.is_deleted

writing is_deleted = true creates a local variable and sets it to true. Since 
you don't use that variable anywhere in your method, I guess that's not what 
you want. I suppose what you want is to call the is_deleted= method which is 
an accessor for the @is_deleted instance variable. If it is so, then changing 
is_deleted= with self.is_deleted is not only an "easy solution" but "the" 
solution. 

The reason is that writing

a_var = something

always means: create a local variable called a_var and assign it the object 
something. If you want to call a method ending in = on the current object, you 
need to explicitly tell it to ruby, using self.

> |but am I misunderstanding what 'self' is supposed to be?  Is there
> |another keyword which means what I've been lead to believe 'self' should
> |mean?  (ie. 'this' in Java)

No, self is exactly what you think.

I hope this helps

Stefano