From: itsme213@... (you CAN teach an old dog ...)
Date: 2003-06-08T09:13:04+09:00
Subject: Re: What should "class ... end"  and "def ... end" return?

Michael Granger <ged@FaerieMUD.org> wrote in message news:<1A475B69-98F0-11D7-B8FE-000A959D1A74@FaerieMUD.org>...
> Just FYI, for classes under 1.8.0, you can do:
> 
>    myClass = Class::new( MySuperclass ) {
>      def foo
>        puts "Foo!"
>      end
>    }
> 
> You can then assign it to a constant if you want it to look like you 
> did 'class MyClass...':
> 
>    MyClass = myClass
>    myClass.name
>    # => "MyClass"
> 
> For methods, you can use Module#define_method:
> 
> irb(main):002:0> class Foo
> irb(main):003:1>   rval = define_method( :foo ) { puts "Foo!" }
> irb(main):004:1>   p rval
> irb(main):005:1> end
> #<Proc:0x40806c4c@(irb):3>
> # => nil
> 
> Some or all of these things may work under 1.6.8 with modifications; I 
> don't know.

Thanks for explaining the rules. But I am curious about why these work
this way.

a) X = 55   # assigns 55 to X; returns 55
b) class X ... end   # should be consistent with a)
c) def ... end       # should be consistent with a)

So, what is the reason why (b) does not return the class, and (c) does
not return the method? [There is probably a good reason]