From: Julian Snitow <vangczung@...>
Date: 2003-04-18T08:07:50+09:00
Subject: Re: why value?

mario junkalz wrote:
> on some extension project for win32 the funcions looks
> like this
> 
> VALUE DoStuff( VALUE self, VALUE aval )
> {
>    [...]
> }
> 
> and in ruby_define_method the cnt for params is 1.
> 
> And on some other projects the value "VALUE self"
> is not there.
> 
> 
> Why?
> What is the VALUE self?
> Why on some files the VALUE self is not there?
> 

In straight C,  VALUE foofunc()  essentially means to take (but, 
generally, ignore) any number of arguments. (In C++ it'd be VALUE 
foofunc(...), since VALUE foofunc() is VALUE foofunc(void), but I 
digress...).

When an object or module calls a member function, it always passes the 
VALUE self, but if you don't need it for a particular function, you can 
ignore it, perhaps at the expense of clarity.

Julian