From: Matthias Reitinger <reitinge+usenet@...>
Date: 2009-07-29T10:25:04+09:00
Subject: Re: dumb question...where is Object#method usage documented

Gary Leydon schrieb:
> elf wrote:
>> I keep seeing this syntax in documentation: Object#method, but in actual
>> use sending a message to an object is usually
>> 
>>         object = Object.new
>>         object.method
>> 
>> Is this just to emphasize that method() operates on an instance of
>> Object and not the class Object?
>> 
>>                 Elf
> 
> Where is this documented? I can't find it in any book...and searching 
> google on Ruby object#method doesn't lead to an explanation of this. You 
> get reams of hits  using object#method syntax but not where it comes 
> from.

The 1st edition of "Programming Ruby"[1] (a.k.a. the "Pickaxe") mentions
this notation:
> Within the text, Fred#doIt is a reference to an instance method (doIt) of
> class Fred, while Fred.new [In some other Ruby documentation, you may
> see class methods written as Fred::new. This is perfectly valid Ruby
> syntax; we just happen to feel that Fred.new is less distracting to
> read.] is a class method, and Fred::EOF is a class constant.

The first appearance in the Ruby changelog[2] dates back to 1995,
suggesting that Matz himself may have introduced this convention.

-Matthias

[1]: http://www.rubycentral.com/pickaxe/preface.html
[2]:
http://svn.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/tags/v1_0/ChangeLog?revision=2&view=markup