:@fudgeKittens, the use of ':' with '@'

Ruby
1

I have run into some code that widely uses symbols with the ‘@’ sign.
Example: :@enable.

Is this considered legal syntax?

2

On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:45:44 +0100, Ricky Ng [email protected] wrote:

I have run into some code that widely uses symbols with the ‘@’ sign.
Example: :@enable.

Is this considered legal syntax?

Yes, :@enable creates a symbol for “@enable”. This is the same as
“@enable”.to_sym, valid, and useful if you need to access instance
variables of a class using instance_variable_get, as it takes a symbol
argument.

I think the syntax is allowed specifically for this case, similarly to
how you can have constructs like :== or :<=> for appropriate symbols, to
be used in other contexts as method names.