why can't I use $3somevar for global variable in ruby 1.8.0?

[Donglai Gong]

Hi, I'm new to Ruby programming and I just upgraded from 1.6.8 to 1.8.0
preview3. I noticed that I can no longer define global variables like
$3somevar (an example of the error I get is attached below). Ruby 1.8
seems to complain about the 3 following the $ where it was perfectly
fine with it in 1.6.8. Is there a reason for this? Thanks.

Regards,
Donglai

------------------------------------------------------------
%ruby example.rb
example.rb:1: warning: useless use of a variable in void context
example.rb:1: syntax error
$3somevar = "whatever"
^

 

[WATANABE Hirofumi]

Hi,

dcarrera ~ $ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.0 (2002-12-24) [sparc-solaris2.8]
dcarrera ~ $ irb=> "whatever"


What's the problem?

Your ruby is too old.

ChangeLog says:

Tue Apr 8 11:49:31 2003 Yukihiro Matsumoto <[email protected]>

(snip)

* parse.y (yylex): disallow global variables like "$1ve".
[ruby-core:00945]