From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2003-06-27T17:03:41+09:00
Subject: Re: why can't I use $3somevar for global variable in ruby 1.8.0?


"WATANABE Hirofumi" <eban@os.rim.or.jp> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:4518-Fri27Jun2003134257+0900-eban@os.rim.or.jp...
> Hi,
>
> Donglai Gong <donglai@MIT.EDU> writes:
>
>
> > There must be a reason why $1ve is disallowed in 1.8.0 but I can't
> > imagine why.  Anyone knows the reason behind this change?

In most programming languages identifiers may not start with a digit.
Same for Ruby.  You can't do class 3Foo; end either. Simply get used to
not start identifiers with numbers.  The change just makes identifiers for
global variables consistent with other identifiers.

In Ruby there's the additional point that $1, $2 etc. are used for holding
the contents of regexp sub pattern matches.

    robert