Feature #20712: module should return newly defined module

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[esad (Esad Hajdarevic)]

Currently module keyword returns nil after defining a new module:

x = module Foo
end
# x is nil

It would be more consistent with Module.new if module keyword returned the newly defined module. Then we could do:

using(module Foo
  refine ...
end)

instead of

module Foo
end
using Foo

[esad (Esad Hajdarevic)]

• Description updated (diff)

[esad (Esad Hajdarevic)]

Ok I was too quick on this one. module keyword returns last expression in the block, so just ending module declaration with self works:

using(module Foo
  refine ...
  self
end)

so this request can be closed

[ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu)]

module and class don't return nil, they return the value of the last statement in the scope:

x = module Foo
  42
end
puts x #=> 42

x = class Bar
  def foo = 42
end
puts x #=> :foo

There might be code that relies on this fact, so the proposal could be a backward compatibility concern.

On the other hand, if this were to change, since method definitions (i.e. defs) return the name of the method defined and not the method object itself, I think it would make more sense for module/class to return the name of the module/class being defined and not the module/class object itself.

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Status changed from Open to Closed