>>>>> "M" == Mark Slagell <ms / iastate.edu> writes: M> anyway (just to make sense to me!), and there is an open question on the M> "top level methods" page. If you look at "Getting started", you'll see : % ruby -v ruby 1.1b5(98/01/19) [i486-linux] the description is true for this version. Apparently there was a modification made between 1.1b9 and 1.1c which make this description false. The new 1.6.0 has the same behaviour than 1.1b5 Guy Decoux