From: Chris White <cwprogram@...>
Date: 2011-11-11T05:54:24+09:00
Subject: Re: How Am I to Understand This Class Behavior?


On Nov 10, 2011, at 12:39 PM, Nik Z. wrote:

> ===== Code as Below =======
> #/usr/bin/env ruby
> 
> puts "print as expected"
> 
> def bar
>    puts "Hello, World!"
> end
> 
> class Foo
>    def initialize
>    end
> 
>    puts "How does this get printed without Foo.new???"
> end
> 

class definitions are expressions where the returned value is the last statement evaluated. See this irb session for example:

>> result = class TestClass
>>   "This is a test"
>> end
=> "This is a test"
>> puts result
This is a test

As the last statement was "This is a test", it becomes the return of the class definition expression. 

- Chris (twitter: @cwgem)