Feature #13207: Allow keyword local variable names like `class` or `for`

• Status: Feedback
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[kaspth (Kasper Timm Hansen)]

Sometimes when trying to write expressive Ruby you enevitably hit a case
that would sound just right if the variable name matches a Ruby keyword.

E.g. writing a method to output HTML tags:

def label_tag(text, class:)
  %(<label class=""#{class.camelize}>#{text}</label>")
end

Or a method to generate a representation for a specific purpose:

def to_gid(for:)
  for ||= :universal
  GlobalID.generate(self.class.name, id, for)
end

Currently Ruby's keywords get in the way of the type of code we'd like to write.
Instead we have to use variable names like klass or modjule:

[ A::B, C::D ].each { |klass| puts klass.name }

It would make me a happier programmer if I could write more naturally instead of
worrying about keywords clashing with local variable names.

It also stands to me that far more often when there is a potential clash I want
the variable name to win out. It's unlikely I will be defining classes or
modules within a method say. In those rare cases where I do,
we could expose keywords like this: Keyword.class, Keyword.for etc.

I propose that renaming a keyword is fair game anywhere except the root scope and
that a rename follows local variable scoping.

NOTE: I think this could also remove the self currently needing to be
prepended to self.class.

I hope this can be yet another case in Ruby's quest to go a bit out of its way
to make programmers lives happier. Thanks!

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Status changed from Open to Feedback

Binding#local_variable_get is for that purpose.

Or do you have any concrete proposal?

[shevegen (Robert A. Heiler)]

I don't have any pro or con on the proposal itself. I also have no idea if
this is a difficult change or whether matz likes it or not, but I wanted
to comment on just one other part.

Kasper Timm Hansen gave this example with keyword arguments:

def label_tag(text, class:)
  %(<label class=""#{class.camelize}>#{text}</label>")
end

I remember that some years ago, for my pseudo-webframework, I needed to
autogenerate HTML tags and also some CSS optionally for these tags.

I was using something like the following:

def h2(content = '', class = 'border_black_1px')
  # code here to generate a h2 tag with a css class called border_black_1px
end

To explain the above, I actually meant class here in the context of CSS,
so more a CSS class and not a ruby class.

Back then to my surprise ruby did not like it, and of course it was easy
to understand why not - ruby expects something such as "class Foo". Fair
enough.

It was not a big deal for me to actually change all the arguments there
from class to css_class instead. No big deal. So it would look like
this:

def h2(content = '', css_class = 'mars1em')

May be easier to read for others, too.

But what I am actually trying to say here is, and this is not a pro or
con opinion on the proposal itself - I actually UNDERSTAND what he is
saying, since I myself encountered a somewhat similar situation. Whether
ruby should allow for it or not is another matter, as said I have no particular
pro or con opinion here. I just wanted to mention that I think that
the example given, even if it was different from my example (since it
used keywords), appears to be a valid example in my opinion.

I have not had the same for "for" though, but for "class" I have. (I
also think that these two are slightly different from the english
language point of view itself, but I digress here.)

Thanks.

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Related to Feature #17785: Allow named parameters to be keywords added