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Jun 4th, 2009

Names starting with ":"

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What are names starting with the ":", are they variables, constants or something else?

drjay

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drjay1627

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Jun 5th, 2009

Re: Names starting with ":"

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by drjay1627 ...

What are names starting with the ":", are they variables, constants or something else?

drjay

In ruby if you don't know what class an object is you can use it's class method and the docs to find out.

ruby Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
% irb --simple-prompt
>> a = :something
=> :something
>> a.class
=> Symbol
% irb --simple-prompt
>> a = :something
=> :something
>> a.class
=> Symbol

Then look it up in the docs: http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Symbol.html

Last edited by pty; Jun 5th, 2009 at 4:00 pm.

pty

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Jun 12th, 2009

Re: Names starting with ":"

They are called 'symbols' in Ruby.

~s.o.s~

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Jul 23rd, 2009

Re: Names starting with ":"

names starting with ":" are expressions that return a symbol object e.g.

Ruby Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
Class Person
  attr_reader :name, :age, :sex
end
 
me = Person.new("poison", "24", "male")
Class Person
  attr_reader :name, :age, :sex
end

me = Person.new("poison", "24", "male")

The construct :name is an expression that returns a symbol corresponding to name.

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