Question

i’m really confused how to name method names in Ruby classes. if i create an accessor like:
attr_accessor :name

it creates to methods:
name
and
name=

but when i call the second method with a whitespace between the ‘name’ and ‘=’ it works

‘n.name=’ and ‘n.name =’ both works.

i read somewhere that Ruby ignores whitespaces. Well then, why a method written by me does not work when i call it with whitespace?

def getname
end

if i call this way, it doesn’t work. why?
t.get name

i’m not surprised as it does not work. but i’m confused how the setter method (name=) works then?

thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Setters are special in Ruby.

In fact, defining a method name ending in an equals sign makes that name eligible to appear on the left-hand side of an assignment.

from http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/html/tut_classes.html

Assignments are defined in Ruby as:

An assignment statement sets the variable or attribute on its left side (the lvalue) to refer to the value on the right (the rvalue).

from http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/html/tut_expressions.html

So n.name= is calling the setter name= directly.

n.name = is using this special treatment of setters by the fact that it ends in an =, to make it so that you can use it as the lvalue (that is, it can appear on the left side) in an assignment.