[ruby-core:35376] [Ruby 1.9 - Feature #4447] [Open] add String#byteslice() method

Issue #4447 has been reported by Suraj Kurapati.

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Feature #4447: add String#byteslice() method
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/4447

Author: Suraj Kurapati
Status: Open
Priority: Normal
Assignee: 
Category: 
Target version: 


Please add a String#byteslice() method to the Ruby 1.9 core API.

Without that method, I am forced to *inefficiently* perform byte-based
string slicing by (1) unpacking the entire string into an Array (with
String#unpack or worse: my_string.bytes.to_a) then (2) slicing that 
Array and finally (3) joining the sliced Array into a string (with 
Array#pack or worse: my_array.map(&:chr).join), all as shown below:

  class String
    unless method_defined? :byteslice
      ##
      # Does the same thing as String#slice but
      # operates on bytes instead of characters.
      #
      def byteslice(*args)
        unpack('C*').slice(*args).pack('C*')
      end
    end
  end

Thanks for your consideration.


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