Bug #12037: did_you_mean reporting impossible suggestion

• Status: Third Party's Issue
• Assignee: yuki24 (Yuki Nishijima)
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: 2.3.0
• Backport: 2.0.0: UNKNOWN, 2.1: UNKNOWN, 2.2: UNKNOWN, 2.3: UNKNOWN

[chrisarcand (Chris Arcand)]

The did_you_mean feature in Ruby 2.3.0 reports an impossible suggestion when you define whatever is being called in the current scope after it is being called:

irb(main):001:0> def foo
irb(main):002:1> bar
irb(main):003:1> bar = "baz"
irb(main):004:1> end
=> :foo
irb(main):005:0> foo
NameError: undefined local variable or method `bar' for main:Object
Did you mean?  bar
        from (irb):2:in `foo'
        from (irb):5
        from /Users/carcand/.rbenv/versions/2.3.0/bin/irb:11:in `<main>'

I imagine this could be very confusing for newcomers to Ruby; I've not looked in to how the gem works but if a way to suppress the suggestion in this particular context might be appropriate.

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Status changed from Open to Third Party's Issue
• Assignee set to yuki24 (Yuki Nishijima)

Probably the same name as the erred should be removed from candidates first.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Issue #12037 has been updated by Nobuyoshi Nakada.

Status changed from Open to Third Party's Issue
Assignee set to Yuki Nishijima

Probably the same name as the erred should be removed from candidates first.

Even better, why not create a more explicit message for such a case, e.g.

NameError: undefined local variable or method `bar' for main:Object
Attempt to use before created:
from (irb):2:in `foo'
from (irb):5
from /Users/carcand/.rbenv/versions/2.3.0/bin/irb:11:in `<main>'

[yuki24 (Yuki Nishijima)]

fixed in yuki24/did_you_mean@1c52c88. Thank you Chris for reporting this issue!

Martin, your idea sounds great to me, but I think it sounds more like a feature. Could you create a new issue so we can hear from other committers?

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Yuki Nishijima wrote:

Martin, your idea sounds great to me, but I think it sounds more like a feature. Could you create a new issue so we can hear from other committers?

Yuki, I can do that, but do we really need feature requests for gems?