From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2010-10-15T00:22:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Why does a lot of code not include parenthesis?

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On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 09:51:19AM +0900, Eric Christopherson wrote:
>=20
> I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you're saying that the
> expression "o.foo" can mean either "invoke method foo on object o" or
> "instance variable foo of object o", depending on how o is defined.
> But AIUI "o.foo" can only ever mean the former. (That method might be
> an accessor for an instance variable, but you still can't refer to an
> instance variable directly using dot notation.)

This is true but, to be fair, it can look an awful lot like direct access
to the variable:

    > class Foo
    >   def initialize(foo=3Dnil)
    >     @foo =3D foo
    >   end
    >   attr_accessor :foo
    > end
    =3D> nil
    > o =3D Foo.new
    =3D> #<Foo:0x2854ec78 @foo=3Dnil>
    > o.foo =3D 'foo'
    =3D> "foo"
    > puts o.foo
    foo
    =3D> nil

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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