jim / freeze.org wrote:

> * Florian Gro<florgro / gmail.com> [2004-10-27 23:08:24 +0900]:
> 
>>6) It is possible to create an empty symbol literal via :"#{""}"
> 
> but not with nil:
> 
>   irb(main):007:0> :"#{nil}"
>   ArgumentError: interning empty string

Quite odd, because "#{nil}" works. Maybe it was an attempt to protect 
against zero-width symbols?

> Also, I couldn't set $1 to a value:
> 
>   irb(main):008:0> $1 = 5
>   SyntaxError: compile error
>   (irb):8: Can't set variable $1

You can set it indirectly via $~. (Which should contain a MatchData 
object.) $1 is just an alias for $~[1].