From: paulmg@... (Paul MG)
Date: 2004-02-01T04:19:52+09:00
Subject: cascading message sends

In Smalltalk, which Ruby is much like in some ways, you can 'cascade'
message sends. That is, call a bunch of methods on the same object
without naming it explicitly over and over. Eg:

     aCollection add: 5; add: 7; add: 'foo' !

calls 'add' on 'aCollection' 3 times, sending 5, 7, and 'foo'.

Does Ruby have this syntax?

cheers:)
PMG

--

PS: yes, you can fake it, if you make the method return 'self': you
just chain the methods together. In Smalltalk:

     ((aCollection add: 5) add: 7) add: 'foo' !

But the ';' operator is needed for the case when the method returns
something other than 'self' - eg for instance, the object just added.
In which case clearly this 'cheat' doesn't work!