From: Sarah Allen <sarah@...>
Date: 2010-04-15T07:14:54+09:00
Subject: Re: I thought spaces didn't matter around operators

Brian Candler wrote:
> Ah I see now, this is just what's called "poetry mode" - method calls 
> without parentheses around the argument list
> 
> Time.now - Time.now   => Time.now() - Time.now()
> 
> Time.now -Time.now    => Time.now(-Time.now())
> 
> Similarly,
> 
> Time.now - 1          => Time.now() - 1
> Time.now -1           => Time.now(-1)

Indeed.  Now I understand.

minus (-) is interpreted as a binary object when preceded by object. 
When preceded by a method name and parentheses are omitted, it is 
interpreted as a unary operator acting on the object that follows it.

There is nothing special about Fixnum or String, here is an example with 
Time:

$ irb
>> t1 = Time.now
=> Wed Apr 14 15:11:33 -0700 2010
>> t2 = Time.now
=> Wed Apr 14 15:11:41 -0700 2010
>> t2 -t1
=> 7.682178

Whew.  Thanks everyone!

Sarah
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