From: Hal Fulton <rubyhacker@...>
Date: 2010-03-12T16:30:24+09:00
Subject: Re: result of assignment is not the return value

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On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 9:39 PM, Nathan Beyer <nbeyer@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 6:03 PM, Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@ruby-lang.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > It's a design choice.  We defined the value of the assignment as the
> > value of the right hand expression, not the return value from the
> > assigning method.
> >
> >                                                        matz.
>
> Ahh. Thanks. I figured it was something like that, but I couldn't find
> any concrete reference to it.
>
>
I have thought about this for awhile. One rationalization is this.

Think of "stacked assignment" which Ruby borrows from C.

   x = y = 5

An accessor acts much like a simple assignment:

   x  = foo.bar = 5    #  same as:   x = (foo.bar = 5)

In this case, it would be weird if x ended up being anything
other than 5.


Hal

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