# How is alias magic?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-alias-magic/163539>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 21, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-alias-magic/163539 "2009-03-21T18:12:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![LAMBEAU\_Bernard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@LAMBEAU\_Bernard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/LAMBEAU_Bernard)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-alias-magic/163539/1 "2009-03-21T18:12:25Z")

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Hi all,

Is there any way to create a alias-like method allowing arguments not  
to be separated by comma?

def my\_alias(from, to)  
…  
end  
myalias :me :you

thx  
blambeau

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**Author:** ![LAMBEAU\_Bernard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@LAMBEAU\_Bernard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/LAMBEAU_Bernard)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-alias-magic/163539/2 "2009-03-21T18:17:42Z")

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LAMBEAU Bernard wrote:

> thx  
> blambeau

Nope, alias is a keyword, not a method, so it has special syntax.

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**Author:** ![LAMBEAU\_Bernard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@LAMBEAU\_Bernard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/LAMBEAU_Bernard)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 9:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-alias-magic/163539/3 "2009-06-05T09:50:58Z")

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As we discuss already some weird issues on this list:  
Wouldn’t it be possible to add some more “syntactic sugar” to Ruby?

What about a “operator” which uses rest of current line as string  
argument?

Example:

def interprete s  
p s.split  
end  
interprete: 1 2 3

should show [“1”, “2”, “3”]…

Or, possibly, put ‘:’ at the end of param-list:  
def interprete s:

…

“Joel VanderWerf” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) schrieb im Newsbeitrag  
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