From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-10-11T14:16:19+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:5412] Re: Object.foo, setters and so on

"Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> writes:

> What does this entry in the FAQ mean?

say you have

   class Dave

     def fred
       @fred
     end

     def fred=(n)
       @fred = n
     end

     def test
       fred = 99
     end
   end

You might be tempted to think that the line 'fred = 99' in method
'test' calls the method 'fred='. After all, method calls in functional 
form have 'self.' implicitly prepended, right?

Unfortunately not. In this case, Ruby will look at 'fred = 99' and
simply assign 99 to a local variable 'fred'. To invoke the setter
method, you need to make the self. explicit:


     def test
       self.fred = 99
     end


Regards


Dave