Is it really true that methods can't start with an uppercase letter?

Question

It's mentioned in the video that method names can't start with an uppercase letter, but this works fine for me in the console:
def TestFunction
  puts("function tested");
end
TestFunction();
(I didn't define the method one line, it just displays it like that)

andren · Accepted Answer

No, it's not strictly true, but there are consequences to using a capital letter.
Names that start with capital letters are treated as constants. The consequence of that is that to call the function you have to use parenthesis, calling it without parenthesis (which is normally allowed in Ruby) won't work.
So something like this would not work:
```Ruby
def TestFunction 
    puts("function tested"); 
end
TestFunction;
```
While this:
```Ruby
def testFunction
    puts("function tested"); 
end
testFunction;
```
Would work.
By convention function names should start with a lowercase letter, and it's generally best to stay with common conventions, especially when you are just starting out with the language.
If you want more info on what is and isn't valid for function names, then you can take a look at this (https://stackoverflow.com/a/10542599) stackoverflow post. It provides quite a bit of detail and also talks about the issue I explained above.

Oğulcan Girginc · Answer

You should use snake case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_case) for Ruby methods, not camel case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_case).

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Tobias Rheindorf

Tobias Rheindorf

Is it really true that methods can't start with an uppercase letter?

2 Answers

andren

andren

Tobias Rheindorf

Tobias Rheindorf

Oğulcan Girginc

Oğulcan Girginc