----- Original Message ----- 
From: "solsTiCe d'Hiver" <solstice.dhiver / laposte.net>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk / ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2006 9:19 AM
Subject: [ruby 1.8.4] bug: power! does not work then works in irb


> hi.
>
> here is a session in irb:
> irb(main):001:0> 10.power!(200)
> NoMethodError: undefined method `power!' for 10:Fixnum
>        from (irb):1
> irb(main):002:0> help Fixnum
> => nil
> irb(main):003:0> 10.power!(200)
> =>
> 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
> irb(main):004:0> quit
>
> so a call to help Fixnum makes the power! method to be available ?
>

I get the same behavior  .. using ruby on Windows XP ... the binary 
distribution