Help Please I'm Learning ;)

Ruby
1

My question regards the code below. I’m a new student to the Ruby
language/programming in general and I’m reading a book that supplied the
majority of the below code. Before I added the def to_s method the
below code would output
puts aSong.inspect as
“#<Song:0x401b4924 @duration=260, @artist=“Fleck”,
@name=“Bicylops”>”
and puts aSong as"
#Song:0x401b499c".
I understand this but as soon as I added the to_s method to the class
Song it automatically implemented it to both puts aSong.inspect and puts
aSong and displayed them as the to_s method that was created. This is
where I’m confused. I don’t understand why it modified both of them
without being called on by a puts aSong.to_s call. If anyone could
explain this I would be greatful! God bless, Jesus loves you!

class Song
def initialize(name, artist, duration)
@name = name
@artist = artist
@duration = duration
end
def to_s
“Song: #{@name}–#{@artist} (#{@duration})”
end

end

aSong = Song.new(“Bocyclops”, “Fleck”, 260)
aSong.inspect

puts aSong.inspect
puts aSong

2

If you override to_s, then you also override inspect. The solution is to
write your own inspect method every time you write your own to_s method.

class Song

def initialize(name, artist, duration)
@name = name
@artist = artist
@duration = duration
end
def to_s
“Song: #{@name}–#{@artist} (#{@duration})”
end

def inspect
“#<#{ self.class }:0x#{ ‘%x’ % (object_id << 1) }:
@duration=#@duration, @artist=#@artist, @name=#@name>”
end

end

irb(main):017:0> aSong = Song.new(“Bocyclops”, “Fleck”, 260)
=> #<Song:0x2dc57f0: @duration=260, @artist=Fleck, @name=Bocyclops>
irb(main):018:0> aSong.inspect
=> “#<Song:0x2dc57f0: @duration=260, @artist=Fleck, @name=Bocyclops>”
irb(main):019:0> puts aSong.inspect
#<Song:0x2dc57f0: @duration=260, @artist=Fleck, @name=Bocyclops>
=> nil
irb(main):020:0> puts aSong
Song: Bocyclops–Fleck (260)
=> nil

3

Joel P. wrote in post #1140083:

If you override to_s, then you also override inspect. The solution is to
write your own inspect method every time you write your own to_s metthod.

Thanks for the reply I appreciate it! Bare with me but I’m confused.

  1. How does override to_s also override inspect? I’m just trying to
    understand. 2.I’m also confused about how creating a new method or
    overriding an existing one automatically calls it?

Thanks again for the help!

4

Subject: Re: Help Please I’m Learning :wink:
Date: lun 17 mar 14 02:13:01 +0100

Quoting Jameson Yount ([email protected]):

Thanks for the reply I appreciate it! Bare with me but I’m confused.

  1. How does override to_s also override inspect? I’m just trying to
    understand. 2.I’m also confused about how creating a new method or
    overriding an existing one automatically calls it?

It is not that overriding to_s overrides inspect. What happens is that
the default inspect eventually invokes the object’s #to_s method. This
happens in C (at least in MRI) - if you want to know exactly how, you
can study the source files object.c and string.c.

This is why, when you override to_s, the default behaviour of inspect
also changes.

Carlo