[ruby-core:28451] Re: [Bug #1893] Recursive Enumerable#join is surprising

On Mar 3, 2010, at 9:46 AM, Jeremy Kemper wrote:
 > This is a similar situation with to_s/to_str and the proposed to_r/ 
to_rat, to_f/to_flo. I think these confusions could be resolved with  
as_str and as_rat.

I do not think adding yet another method solves anything; on
the contrary. In any case, the usages clearly need to be defined
better, and implementation should be changed to correspond to
the definition.

Possible definition using Array as example:

#to_a:

- Returns an Array.
- Could be a *representation* of the object as an Array, but
   I do not think this needs to be specified. Just some Array.
- The Array may be independent of the original object. (I would
   be tempted to specify that it *is*, i.e. that Array#to_a would
   actually #dup the original, but this may not be desirable.)

#to_ary

- Returns an Array-like object (either all methods or some
   defined subset like #[], #[]= and #size only.)
- The returned object is tied to the original. Changes made
   to it should reflect in the original.

Is this missing a use case (and is such a use case valid)?


Eero
--
Magic is insufficiently advanced technology.