From: Philip Mak <pmak@...>
Date: 2002-07-02T07:36:31+09:00
Subject: Re: is this the way it should work? newbie problem...

On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 07:30:23AM +0900, MIcha wrote:
> that seems not to work: (it' ported from perl to ruby:-)
> 
> x = max_x if --x == 0;
> 
> the variable x is never decremented.
> why?

I believe the above code is semantically equivalent to this:

if --x == 0
    x = max_x
end

or this:

if x - 1 == 0
    x = max_x
end

The statement "x = max_x" overwrites the effect that "--x" had.