From: Brian Candler <redmine@...> Date: 2009-08-01T17:00:47+09:00 Subject: [ruby-core:24650] [Bug #1853] Cannot make constants using upper-case extended characters? Bug #1853: Cannot make constants using upper-case extended characters? http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/show/1853 Author: Brian Candler Status: Open, Priority: Normal ruby -v: ruby 1.9.2dev (2009-07-18 trunk 24186) [i686-linux] >> SCH��N = 1 # constant => 1 >> ��BER = 2 # local variable! => 2 >> self.class.constants.grep(/SCH|BER/) => [:SCH��N] >> local_variables.grep(/SCH|BER/) => [:��BER] I am not sure from the source code whether this is intentional or not. In parse.c it uses rb_enc_isupper which understands encodings: else if (rb_enc_isupper(m[0], enc)) { id = ID_CONST; } else { id = ID_LOCAL; This is in rb_intern3. And yet it is called from rb_intern2 which says: ID rb_intern2(const char *name, long len) { return rb_intern3(name, len, rb_usascii_encoding()); } If this is intentional, it seems like an arbitrary restriction. Unicode characters are unambiguously classified into upper-case, lower-case and neither. If they can be used anywhere within an identifier, why not at the start of a constant? ---------------------------------------- http://redmine.ruby-lang.org