From: Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@...32.com>
Date: 2012-04-15T00:48:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Operator overloading of the subscript operator

Jan,

Saturday, April 14, 2012, 9:03:29 AM, you wrote:

JE> Hi,

JE> You won't find this in the Ruby API, because it's a core feature of the 
JE> language and not some special property of a method.

JE> The Ruby interpreter evaluates every expression of the pattern

JE> IDENTIFIER[VAL_1, VAL_2, ..., VAL_n] = VAL

JE> to a call of the []= method:

JE> IDENTIFIER.[]=(VAL_1, VAL_2, ..., VAL_n, VAL)

JE> This should be explained in every good book about Ruby basics.

I have the Pickax book and I see two places operator overloading is mentioned: pages 130 and 345.

Isn't there official documentation about the Ruby core?


If one looks at page 333 which lists all the operators that are expressed as methods, one sees that subscript is the only one where the expression goes lexically inside the operator.  As a special
case shouldn't this be documented somewhere official?

Ralph