From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-08-13T11:07:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Nested class/module namespace

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:08:19 +0900, Nathaniel Talbott wrote:
> Yukihiro Matsumoto [mailto:matz@ruby-lang.org] wrote:
>> "Nathaniel Talbott"
>> |Why does the second case fail? It makes me not want to use |the second
>> version, since it means I have to fully-qualify |all constants in the
>> enclosing namespace, instead of just |using them as I usually do. I
>> hope it's just a bug :-/.
>> Unfortunately, it's not.  "class M::C" notation is not a syntax sugar
>> for 'module M; class C".  It is something like "M::C = Class.new", so
>> that the body of C definition is not nested in the M body.
> What is the motivation behind the current behavior? Is it that way
> because of difficulty in implementing it differently, or for some other
> reason?

It makes sense to me.

You're defining a new constant C in module M. You're not *in* module M. If 
you do:

  module M; end
  M::B = :foo
  p M::B

This would be the same as doing:

  module M; end
  c = Class.new
  M::C = c
  p M::C

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.08.12
                                         * 21.59.17