On 9/20/05, Trans <transfire / gmail.com> wrote:
> Recently I was suprised by the behavior of "start = lambda { start }".
> Now that I understand that, I am suprised that
> 
>   a = 1
>   b = i if (i = a)
> 
> doesn't work.

There was a thread on this a while back; apparently it is difficult to
implement this under the current parser:
http://rubyurl.com/k0u [1]

In the course sof the discussion, a patch was offered; but its creator
(the venerable Nobu) labeled it as a dirty hack.

cheers,
Mark

[1] http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/4c3ba45c808fbc46/229fdffcbc165af8?tvc=1&q=only+if+object+exists#229fdffcbc165af8