------ art_10691_30056396.1146763057499 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Thanks Patrick. You were right about the constructor call. It was my mistake. Now without it, it returns nil as you indicated. ::akbar > > Maybe this will help clarify: > > class Foo > attr_reader :bar > > def go_to_the_bar > @bar = 'anytime' > end > end > > foo = Foo.new > p foo.bar > foo.go_to_the_bar > p foo.bar > > There is no error, accessing the instance variable @bar, from the > reader (it has a value of nil) -- it is created on the fly. I am > guessing you commented out your initialize, but were still calling the > constructor with parameters? > > pth > > ------ art_10691_30056396.1146763057499--