From: Justin Collins <justincollins@...>
Date: 2012-06-30T01:01:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Accessor Methods with a Twist

On 06/29/2012 08:33 AM, Doug Jolley wrote:
> I am surprised that the code shown below returns, 'Doug'.  I would
> expect that it would return, 'Fred'.  Can someone please tell me why?
>
> @name = 'Doug'
>
> def name=(name)
>    @name = name
> end
> def name()
>    return @name
> end
>
> name=('Fred')
> puts(name())
>
> Thanks.
>
>         ... doug
>
> P.S. - Please understand that this question is academic to help me
> understand things.  Naturally, I would not do this in practice.  Thanks
> again.
>
`name=('Fred)` is not calling your `name=` method. It's parsed as `name 
= 'Fred'`, i.e. a local variable assignment.

You can see this if you do `puts name` vs. `puts name()`

To achieve what you expect, you can use `self.name = 'Fred'`

-Justin