Calling a function: one space difference between failing and succeeding

I have a function defined as follows:

def download_file (url1, url2, file1, file_age_max_hours) puts (url1) puts (url2) puts (file1) puts (file_age_max_hours) end

The following command works: download_file(“Hello”, “World”, “Rubyists”, 34)

The following command fails: download_file (“Hello”, “World”, “Rubyists”, 34)

The only difference is the space before the “(”. Why is the presence or absence of this space so significant? This was never a problem for me in Python. (On the other hand, I quickly learned to NEVER use tabs to indent when programming in Python.)

Because this is Ruby not Python. My understanding of why this is so (which may be wrong or at least incomplete) is because you do not need the parentheses at all, so you could say download_file "Hello", "World", "Rubyists", 34 so if you have a space and a "(" then the space starts the parameter list and then along comes a "(" which may now have a different meaning, dependant on context. So the best thing is just to remember not to put a space after the method name if you are using parentheses.

Colin

the space + () creates a new closure and that closure causes an error because you have a bunch of commas outside of context. Colin is right, I just wanted to elaborate that it creates a new closure.