From: Roel Harbers <rubycore@...>
Date: 2007-03-12T22:09:48+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby 1.8.5p12: default IO object for gets() ?

Unknown wrote:
> How many more quirks like that exist?

It might be a bit quirky, it took me by surprise too. However, it's
right there in the documentation.

> I feel it a bit unnnatural. unprefixed gets/puts etc should use
> $stdin,$stdout only. Since usualy you use other IO objects to access
> open files or sockets.
> 
> Is it going to be changed maybe?

Not likely. Quite a lot of scripts use it to easily allow input from
either stdin or a file, without having to bother with opening files.

So, you can either do
someexecutable | myscript.rb
or
myscript.rb inputfile
without any extra work, which can be convenient for simple scripts.

Regards,

Roel Harbers