Document defined? and global_variables handling of regexp global variables [ci skip]

Fixes [Bug #11304]

2 files changed, 34 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/doc/syntax/miscellaneous.rdoc b/doc/syntax/miscellaneous.rdoc
index 87ec059ae7..d5cfd3e474 100644
--- a/doc/syntax/miscellaneous.rdoc
+++ b/doc/syntax/miscellaneous.rdoc
@@ -83,6 +83,36 @@ Using the specific reflection methods such as instance_variable_defined? for
 instance variables or const_defined? for constants is less error prone than
 using +defined?+.
 
++defined?+ handles some regexp global variables specially based on whether
+there is an active regexp match and how many capture groups there are:
+
+  /b/ =~ 'a'
+  defined?($~) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($&) # => nil
+  defined?($`) # => nil
+  defined?($') # => nil
+  defined?($+) # => nil
+  defined?($1) # => nil
+  defined?($2) # => nil
+
+  /./ =~ 'a'
+  defined?($~) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($&) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($`) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($') # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($+) # => nil
+  defined?($1) # => nil
+  defined?($2) # => nil
+
+  /(.)/ =~ 'a'
+  defined?($~) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($&) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($`) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($') # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($+) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($1) # => "global-variable"
+  defined?($2) # => nil
+
 == +BEGIN+ and +END+
 
 +BEGIN+ defines a block that is run before any other code in the current file.
diff --git a/eval.c b/eval.c
index d5154b7db1..a68c26a2d6 100644
--- a/eval.c
+++ b/eval.c
@@ -1996,7 +1996,10 @@ f_current_dirname(VALUE _)
  *  call-seq:
  *     global_variables    -> array
  *
- *  Returns an array of the names of global variables.
+ *  Returns an array of the names of global variables. This includes
+ *  special regexp global variables such as <tt>$~</tt> and <tt>$+</tt>,
+ *  but does not include the numbered regexp global variables (<tt>$1</tt>,
+ *  <tt>$2</tt>, etc.).
  *
  *     global_variables.grep /std/   #=> [:$stdin, :$stdout, :$stderr]
  */