>>>>> "D" == Dave Thomas <Dave / PragmaticProgrammer.com> writes: D> Well, it cheats. The string class names are associated with classes D> when they're first attached to a constant. This is a little more complex (this is just to give some troubles :-))) pigeon% cat b.rb #!/usr/bin/ruby a = Class.new p a.name AB = a p a.name if ARGV.size == 0 CC = a p a.name pigeon% pigeon% b.rb "" "AB" "AB" pigeon% pigeon% b.rb 1 "" "CC" pigeon% Guy Decoux