From: Joey Zhou <yimutang@...>
Date: 2011-08-01T13:57:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:38644] [Ruby 1.9 - Feature #5129][Open] Create a core class "FileArray" and make "ARGF" its instance


Issue #5129 has been reported by Joey Zhou.

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Feature #5129: Create a core class "FileArray" and make "ARGF" its instance
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/5129

Author: Joey Zhou
Status: Open
Priority: Normal
Assignee: 
Category: 
Target version: 


I suggest to create a class "FileArray" whose instance behaves just like ARGF do.
And I think ARGF should be an instance of FileArray. Now when I "p ARGF.class", I get "ARGF.class", so ARGF is an instance of ARGF.class, how meaningless it is.


FileArray methods:

# create an instance
fa = FileArray.new('a.txt','b.txt','c.txt')

# take many methods from IO
# most methods from ARGF should be instance methods of ARGF 
fa.each {|line| puts line }
fa.realines
fa.filename # current file

# but "argv" not
p fa.file_list # in ARGF, its ARGF.argv, but #argv is not a proper name for FileArray

# ARGV array can be modified, adding new file into it, all replace to a new file list.
# FileArray should add some methods to modify the inner file list.
fa.insert(3,"d.txt")
fa.delete('a.txt')


With FileArray, You can create multiple ARGF-like file arrays simultaneously.

For example, I want to mix two *groups* of files, not two files:

a_files = FileArray.new(*Dir.glob('a*.txt'))
b_files = FileArray.new(*Dir.glob('b*.txt'))

enum_a = a_files.each
enum_b = b_files.each

loop do
 puts enum_a.next
 puts enum_b.next
end


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