On Sat, 25 Mar 2006, Nate Smith wrote:

> Hello,
>
> What is the benefit in ruby of allowing the following syntax:
>
> in irb:
>
> irb(main):005:0> 1 + + + + 3
> => 4


you are just saying

   1 + (+(+(+3)))


in otherwords you have made 3 __very__ positive.  if you could not do that
you'd not be able to do this:


   jib:~ > ruby -e'  p 41 - -1  '
   42


C is going to allow this too:

   jib:~ > cat a.c && gcc a.c && a.out
   main(){ printf ("%d\n", 41 + + + 1); }
   42

it's just a result of binding/associvity.

regards.

-a
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