Ruby can not access variable outside the method?

Question

I am new to Ruby, and it seems that Ruby does support variables defined outside the method being accessed just now when I want to do something:

---

template=<<MTEMP
#methodName#:function(){},
MTEMP
result="";
def generateMethods(mds)
  mds.each do |md|
    result+=template.gsub(/#methodName#/,md).to_s+"\n";
  end
  result;
end

puts generateMethods(['getName','getAge','setName','setAge'])

---

When I tried to run it I got the error:

undefined local variable or method 'template' for main:Object (NameError)

It seems that I can not access the template and result variable inner the generateMethods method?

Why?

---

Update:

It seems that the scope concept is differ from what is in the javascript?

var xx='xx';
function afun(){
  console.info(xx);
}

The above code will work.

Answer 1

The result and template variables inside the generateMethods function are different from the ones declared outside and are local to that function. You could declare them as global variables with $ :

$template=<<MTEMP
#methodName#:function(){},
MTEMP
$result="";
def generateMethods(mds)
  mds.each do |md|
    $result+=$template.gsub(/#methodName#/,md).to_s+"\n";
  end
  $result;
end
puts generateMethods(['getName','getAge','setName','setAge'])

But what's your purpose with this function? I think there's a cleaner way to do this if you can explain your question more.

Answer 2

You are declaring local variables, not global ones. See this site for more (simplified) details: http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Ruby_Variable_Scope

Answer 3

Local variables are local to the scope they are defined in. That's why they are called local variables, after all!

Ergo, you cannot access them from a different scope. That's the whole point of local variables.