From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@...>
Date: 2003-07-19T01:34:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Aliased setter methods behave differently than other methods?

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 12:44:14AM +0900, Jim Cain wrote:
> But what about the generic case when you don't know how many arguments a 
> method takes, and you don't really want to know:
> 
> module_eval <<-EOF
>     def #{s}(*arg)
>        puts 'hola ' + arg
>        self.old_#{s}(*arg)    # syntax error
>     end
> EOF
> 
> I get a syntax error on the method call, but only for setters. Is a 
> method with a name like "somemethod=" required to take exactly one argument?

irb(main):001:0> class Foo
irb(main):002:1> def x=(a,b)
irb(main):003:2> puts a,b
irb(main):004:2> end
irb(main):005:1> end
=> nil
irb(main):006:0> a = Foo.new
=> #<Foo:0x81ae97c>
irb(main):007:0> a.x=(1,2)
SyntaxError: compile error

But:

irb(main):008:0> a.send(:x=,1,2)
1
2
=> nil

Regards,

Brian.