How do I find the meaning of Ruby operators without using text?

Question

How do you find information (via Google, preferably) about the usage of operators in code? In this case, I want to find the meaning of this code in Ruby.

x = [1,2,3]
x.send :[]=,0,2
x[0] + x.[](1) + x.send(:[],2)

I want you to teach me how to fish -- do not tell me what the operators do. When I go to Google and try to search for the notation, I get examples or tutorials that don't cover the particular usage.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1165786/how-to-search-for-punctuation-that-gets-ignored-by-google says that Google dismisses such notation; the way that I'm looking for an "answer" is to ask for at least one successful walkthrough from someone that can take the above code and say "Here is how I find out what the operators do".

Example of my unsuccessful searches.

• I search for Ruby :[]= and add/remove terms like notation, operator, colon, bracket, square brackets, and can't find usage of these operators in this way.

• I search for ruby . notation, add/remove terms like period, dot, parenthesis, etc.

• I search for cheat sheets. Find the cheat sheet to Ruby on Rails default directory structure, regex expressions, etc., but still not what I'm looking for.

Answer 1

It's so hard not to tell you (I will if you ask).

Get a Ruby book. Try the Pickaxe, it has an entire section on Ruby operators, metaprograming, language reference, etc.