From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-07-16T00:13:52+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:04038] Re: Pluggable functions and blocks

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:04031] Re: Pluggable functions and blocks"
    on 00/07/15, Dave Thomas <Dave@Thomases.com> writes:

|>   String.instance_method(:clone).call("a")    #=> cloned string "a"
|>   Class.instance_method(:new).call("a")       #=> TypeError
|
|I'm wondering - what is the semantics of this? Is the parameter
|substituted for 'self' in the call, or is it an argument to the
|constructor of the original class (or something else entirely)? How do 
|you differentiate parameters that are to be passed to the method
|itself?

an unbound method is a method definition without specific receiver.
You should supply its receiver of sufficient type as the first
argument to `call' method to invoke it.

   String.instance_method(:gsub).call("abc", /a/, "b") # => "bbc"
   String.instance_method(:gsub).call(42, /a/, "b")    # => TypeError

Hope this helps.
							matz.