From: Shannon Fang <xrfang@...>
Date: 2002-12-01T08:57:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Document

Hi Bill,

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002 06:47:06 +0900
"Bill Kelly" <billk@cts.com> wrote:

> the source code, except that the :name syntax is a short cut for
> "name".intern.
Trouble is, :name is arbitrary, as I tested in irb. It seems when you
type :name, it is dynamically created in the system. And if in the
system there are a variable called name defined, you can not reference
to name through :name. Is it correct? If so, it is hard for me to think
of any use of symbol, except that it may save some bytes of memory.
Please see below.

> irb> prompt = "'which method do you want?'", "t.send(:a)"
> ["'which method do you want?'", "t.send(:a)"]

Now is the problem makes my brain a mess. When you use t.send(:a), how
can the interpreter know to map :a to method a?? As I experimented, :a
can exist independent of a, and even there is a exists in the system,
you can't use :a to reference a. p :a will output :a, not a, or value of
a! If :a is independent to any other variable, it can only be a
"immutable" or very economic string, what's the big deal? Can't you use
string.freeze to make it immutable (if it is really necessary)?

Please help... :'(

Shannon