From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2012-09-01T16:03:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Constructor or a Method

On Saturday 01 September 2012 Rubyist Rohit wrote
> Take for instance this code:
> 
> ======== [CODE] =======
> def Customer
>    attr_accessor :name
> 
>    def name
>      @name
>    end
> 
>    def name(=str)
>      @name = str
>    end
> end
> =======================
> 
> I want to know:
> 
> (1) Is 'name' a constructor or a method?
It's a normal method. What you'd call a "constructor" in other languages, in 
ruby is the initialize method.

> (2) In case I ignore '=' in second method, will it work? Why '=' is
> necessary?
If you omit the = in the second method, you'll define a method called "name" 
which takes one argument and makes the instance variable @name point to the 
str object. This will override the previously defined name method. Also, you 
won't be able to do something like:

Customer.new.name = 'x'

but only

Customer.new.name 'x'

which, depending on circumstances, may be unexpected.

Note that both the method definitions are useless here, as using attr_accessor 
already creates two methods doing exactly what your hand-written methods do.

I hope this helps

Stefano