local function definitions hide base

[mlubin]

Related to issue #1500.

julia> ref() = 1

julia> y = [1,2,3]
3-element Int64 Array:
 1
 2
 3

julia> y[1]
no method ref(Array{Int64,1},Int64)
 in method_missing at base.jl:72

[staticfloat]

Discussion of this is pretty well summed up in Issue #1484, where the general consensus is to rename ref to something more difficult to collide with.

[mlubin]

The issue isn't with the name ref. If you want to implement ref (show, length, etc..) for a new type, it will hide the base version. This is a bug.

[nolta]

This isn't a bug. If you want to extend ref, you have to import Base.ref first.

[staticfloat]

Indeed, sorry about misreading that. This is related to the bug (can't find the issue right now where it was originally reported) where importing names, using them, then overriding them behaves differently then importing names, overriding them and then using them. For instance, the following works:

julia> y = [1,2,3]
3-element Int64 Array:
 1
 2
 3

julia> y[1]
1

julia> ref() = 1

julia> y[1]
1

[mlubin]

import Base.ref seems to work. I'll close this.