From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2009-07-17T15:21:04+09:00
Subject: Re: trouble with puts

On Friday 17 July 2009, Venkat Akkineni wrote:
> |Hello
> |
> |       I have been trying to tranlate an application from java to ruby.
> |The java program has a main method for testing purposes. I am
> |implementing this
> |in ruby as a separate file. While doing this I noticed that puts doesn't
> |work from inside a method. Let me explain,
> |
> |case 1:
> |
> |#just this line in a file called something.rb
> |
> |puts "something"
> |
> |>ruby something.rb
> |>something
> |
> |# The same line enclosed in a class
> |class Something
> |
> |puts "something"
> |
> |end
> |
> |> ruby something.rb
> |> something
> |
> |# The same line inside a method in a class doesn't work
> |class Something
> |
> |def print_something
> |
> |puts "something"
> |
> |end
> |end
> |
> |> ruby something.rb
> |
> |# I don't see the expected Output
> |
> |
> |Could somebody throw some light on this.
> |
> |Thanks
> |Venkat

Are you calling the print_something method? The body of a class (or a top 
level method call) is executed as soon as it's read, but the body of a method 
is executed only when the method itself is called. If you want to see the call 
to puts from print_something, you'll have to call print_something:

#file something.rb

#here you define the print_something method. What's inside the method 
#definition isn't executed
def print_something
  puts "something"
end

#here you call the method you just defined. Now the body of the method is 
#executed.
print_something

Then, calling

ruby something.rb

you should see the output from puts.

I hope this helps

Stefano