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What does the -> symbol mean?

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Andy Burnett

What does the -> symbol mean?

I can't find it in my introductory books. The content was:

self entries add: aString -> aBlock

Is it a bit like the underscore character being the same as := ?

thanks
AB

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Benjamin Schroeder-2

Re: What does the -> symbol mean?

On Jul 29, 2008, at 8:02 PM, Andy Burnett wrote:

> I can't find it in my introductory books. The content was:
>
> self entries add: aString -> aBlock
>
> Is it a bit like the underscore character being the same as := ?

It's actually a binary (one-argument, infix) method, like +, =, or ==;
it's the - and > characters put together rather than being a
specialized glyph like the left arrow was. It creates an Association,
which is a key-value pair used in things like Dictionaries.

If I remember correctly, any characters which can be used for binary
methods can be strung together to make other binary methods -
sometimes you'll see these turn up in specialized contexts. For
example, there's also ==>, on Booleans, for implication ("a implies b").

Ben Schroeder

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Loew Uwe (DS/EES1)

AW: What does the -> symbol mean?

In reply to this post by Andy Burnett

Hello Andy,

you can find the code behind this in the instance classes of Object.

-> and => are both answering an Association with the sender as key and the argument as value.

Best regards

Uwe Loew

Von: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Andy Burnett
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 30. Juli 2008 02:03
An: Squeak list
Betreff: [Newbies] What does the -> symbol mean?

I can't find it in my introductory books. The content was:

self entries add: aString -> aBlock

Is it a bit like the underscore character being the same as := ?

thanks
AB

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Beginners mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners