From: Sean O'Dell <sean@...>
Date: 2002-04-18T02:05:46+09:00
Subject: Ways methods return values

I know in Ruby, the last evaluation is returned by a method and you can also
explicitly "return" a value, but I was wondering if there was a way to do
something I became accustomed to while programming in Pascal.

In Pascal, functions have a local variable with the same name of the
function that you can assign to at any location within the function and no
matter what causes the function to return (aside from an exception), the
return value will be whatever you assigned to that variable.

Example:

function MyFunction: string;
begin
    DoSomething();
    MyFunction := 'this is the return value';
    DoSomeMoreStuff();
    // function ends
end;

The return value is the value of MyFunction, even though it wasn't
explicitly "return'd."

Is there a way to do this in Ruby?  To set a specific return value, then go
on to do other things and not have to worry about where the method return
occurs?

    Sean