Is it possible to have class.property = x return something other than x?

Question

Let\'s say I have a Ruby class:

class MyClass
  def self.property
    return \"someVal\"
  end

  def self.property=(newVal)
    # do something to set \"prop         


        

Answer 1

One downside is that you would break the chained assignment semantics:

$ irb 
irb(main):001:0> x = y = 3
=> 3
irb(main):002:0> p x
3
=> nil
irb(main):003:0> p y
3
=> nil
irb(main):004:0> 

Consider:

x = MyClass.property = 3

Then x would take true if this worked as you had expected (right-associativity). That could be a surprise for people using your interface and used to the typical semantics.

You also got me thinking about parallel assignment, eg:

x, y = 1, 2

Apparently the return value from that expression is implementation specific... I guess I won't be chaining parallel assignments :)

Nice question!