On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 12:04:48AM +0900, Gawnsoft wrote:
> >Of course! Duh. I stared and stared at that one and never saw it from 
> >Ruby's point of view. Now I just have to figure out how to make it look 
> >like a method call.
> 
> 
> Errmm, not obvious to me (a newbie).  What's the significance of the =
> suffix in  amethod name that makes it behave differently

   foo = x

is always interpreted as an assignment to local variable 'foo'; and from
that point onwards in that method, 'foo' by itself is treated as a local
variable rather than a method. So, a local variable assignment takes
precedence over any method with the same name which might exist. Hence you
cannot call a method 'foo=' with the above syntax. You can however specify a
receiver (self.foo=) or use 'send', in which case it is unambiguously a
method call.

Ought to be documented here, but doesn't appear to be :-)
http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ThingsNewcomersShouldKnow

Regards,

Brian.