Bug #12501: Assignment to local variable itself doesn't occur an error

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: 2.3.0
• Backport: 2.1: UNKNOWN, 2.2: UNKNOWN, 2.3: UNKNOWN

[[e-mail] (Yu Zhang)]

For example:

a = b # => undefined local variable or method `b' for main:Object (NameError)

but

a = a # => nil
a = a.merge({}) # => undefined method `merge' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

The a after = is an undefined local variable, I think it should raise a NameError, but it only returns a nil value.

Is this a feature or bug?

[shevegen (Robert A. Heiler)]

I think it is neither a feature nor a bug but simply a consequence of how the ruby parser (or was it
the lexer or scanner) reads/parses the code. The pickaxe mentioned that once, if I remember correctly.

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Description updated (diff)
• Status changed from Open to Rejected