The snippet illustrates my question.

a={}
b={}
a["alpha"]=b["alpha"]=[]
a["alpha"]<<23
b["alpha"]<<100
puts a["alpha"]
puts b["alpha"]

Here a["alpha"] and b["alpha"] both contain an array of [23,100].
Why??

If I remove the multiple assignment,
a={}
b={}
a["alpha"]=[]
b["alpha"]=[]
a["alpha"]<<23
b["alpha"]<<100
puts a["alpha"]
puts b["alpha"]


a["alpha"] contains 23 and b["alpha"] contains 100 as I expected.

On Mon, Sep 17, 2007, Mukund wrote:
> Here a["alpha"] and b["alpha"] both contain an array of [23,100].
> Why??

It's this line, right here.

> a["alpha"]=b["alpha"]=[]

What's happening is the a["alpha"] is getting the result of
b["alpha"]=[], which is the empty array on the far-right of the
assignment. Both a["alpha"] and b["alpha"] contain a reference to the
same array.

> If I remove the multiple assignment,
> a["alpha"]=[]
> b["alpha"]=[]

a["alpha"] and b["alpha"] now are both references to *different* empty
arrays.

Hope that s

Ben

On 9/16/07, Mukund <maruthim@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The snippet illustrates my question.
>
> a={}
> b={}
> a["alpha"]=b["alpha"]=[]

You are assigning a new Array to the key "alpha" in the hash b. The
return value from hash assignment is the object stored in the hash --
i.e. the new Array you created. This object is then assigned to the
key "alpha" in the hash a.

Blessings,
TwP

Mukund wrote:
> The snippet illustrates my question.
>
> a={}
> b={}
> a["alpha"]=b["alpha"]=[]
> a["alpha"]<<23
> b["alpha"]<<100
> puts a["alpha"]
> puts b["alpha"]
>
> Here a["alpha"] and b["alpha"] both contain an array of [23,100].
> Why??
>
> If I remove the multiple assignment,
> a={}
> b={}
> a["alpha"]=[]
> b["alpha"]=[]
> a["alpha"]<<23
> b["alpha"]<<100
> puts a["alpha"]
> puts b["alpha"]
>
>
> a["alpha"] contains 23 and b["alpha"] contains 100 as I expected.
>
>
Because, in the first case, both a["alpha"] and b["alpha"] refer to the
same array. You simply have two different ways of referring to it.

In the second case, the code constructs two different arrays.

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