From: Chris White <cwprogram@...>
Date: 2011-08-13T19:34:51+09:00
Subject: Re: How to get the Name of a Variable


On Aug 13, 2011, at 2:17 AM, Agent Mulder wrote:

> Hello.
> 
> When I call a function with an argument, I want to retrieve the NAME of
> the original argument I passed into the funtion. In the code snippet
> below, I want the last line of output to be:
> 
> The NAME of the variable you passed in is: local_var
> 
> instead of
> 
> The NAME of the variable you passed in is: WHAT DO I NEED HERE?
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> <code>
> 
> def a_not_so_special_function(a)
> puts "You are inside a_not_so_special_function().\n"
> puts "The VALUE of the variable you passed in is: "+a
> puts "The NAME of the variable you passed in is: "+"WHAT DO I NEED
> HERE?"
> end
> 
> local_var="foo"
> a_not_so_special_function(local_var)
> 
> </code>

I suppose I'd have to ask why this is necessary. If you need a name associated with a value I'd recommend using a hash instead. Technically there might be a way be analyzing stack frames, but that would require access to the internals through the C API.

Regards,
Chris White
http://www.twitter.com/cwgem