Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!goanna!pnm
From: pnm@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Paul Menon)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: PP Smalltalk R4 Query, Bug?
Summary: thanx
Keywords: help
Message-ID: <4932@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 9 Mar 91 05:03:39 GMT
References: <4931@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 36



hi,
  Thankyou to all those who responded via mail & news.  All the email
  responders (huba@ls5.informatik.uni-dortmund.de, cca@physics.purdue.edu,
  sbb@Eng.Sun.COM and knight@mrco.carleton.ca so far) pointed out that

      aDict := Dictionary new add: #Three->3
		    and
      (aDict := Dictionary new) add: #Three->3
  
  return totally different types of object.

  Yes, I was aware of this feature in Smalltalk (ie, add: returning the 
  added object, not the object into which it was added), but I must've been
  under the influence of vertigo, occasionally suffered by those in a 
  multilingual programming environment.  To make matters worse, it appears
  that the manual writer(s) of the User's Guide fell for the same trap.  Oh
  well, I have company anyway.  And I'm glad it isn't a Smalltalk bug.

  The moral of the story?  RTFM doesn't always work!

  (I'm pretty sure there wasn't a "; yourself" appended to the first statement
  above in the User's Guide, but I'll check when I'm at work again).

  Once again, Thankyou for the swift response.

    Paul Menon,  (the room's still spinning...)
    Dept of Computer Science,
    Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 
    124 Latrobe Street,
    Melbourne 3001, 
    Victoria, Australia.

pnm@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au
PH:	+61 3 660 3209