Bug: power! does not work then works in irb

Ruby
1

hi.

here is a session in irb:
irb(main):001:0> 10.power!(200)
NoMethodError: undefined method `power!’ for 10:Fixnum
from (irb):1
irb(main):002:0> help Fixnum
=> nil
irb(main):003:0> 10.power!(200)
=>
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
irb(main):004:0> quit

so a call to help Fixnum makes the power! method to be available ?

i use slackare 10.2 with a self-made package of ruby 1.8.4 compiled with
CFLAGS=“-O2 -march=$arch -mcpu=i686”
CXXFLAGS=“-O2 -march=$arch -mcpu=i686”
./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-shared
make
make install DESTDIR=$pkg
make install-doc DESTDIR=$pkg

on an Athlon XP 1800+

note:

not all people on #ruby-lang on irc.freenode.net got that error

2

I just tried this on Osx and got the same result!

Keith

3

Hi,

You probably saw my reply on IRC but for others…

2006/4/9, solsTiCe d’Hiver [email protected]:

hi.

here is a session in irb:
irb(main):001:0> 10.power!(200)
NoMethodError: undefined method `power!’ for 10:Fixnum
from (irb):1
irb(main):002:0> help Fixnum
=> nil

This is actually a valid call. To see what help is from try:

method :help

You might get something like:

#<Method: Object(IRB::ExtendCommandBundle)#help>

The part in () tells us that it is from IRB… a quick check shows
that a trail is started
that eventually leads to:

require ‘mathn’

That file in turn, does something like:

alias power! **

The reason not all people got the error is because some were probably
loading other code at startup or before testing. Rubygems is an
example of this.

Moral of the story is to be away of what your ruby environment
automatically brings in.

Brian.

4

Hi,

At Sun, 9 Apr 2006 22:19:23 +0900,
solsTiCe d’Hiver wrote in [ruby-talk:188278]:

here is a session in irb:
irb(main):001:0> 10.power!(200)
NoMethodError: undefined method `power!’ for 10:Fixnum
from (irb):1

power! is for internal use only. Do not use.

5

----- Original Message -----
From: “solsTiCe d’Hiver” [email protected]
To: “ruby-talk ML” [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2006 9:19 AM
Subject: [ruby 1.8.4] bug: power! does not work then works in irb

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
irb(main):004:0> quit

so a call to help Fixnum makes the power! method to be available ?

I get the same behavior … using ruby on Windows XP … the binary
distribution