From: "Florian Groß" <florgro@...>
Date: 2005-09-09T00:49:21+09:00
Subject: Re: returning strings from methods/instance_methods

TRANS wrote:

> I was just wondering why with #methods and #instance_methods, it was
> decided to return the names as strings and not symobols? I'm working
> on something right now that uses those, building a hash, and it just
> stikes me as odd when in so many cases the common idiom is to use a
> symbol, (eg. attr :x, define_method :x, etc.) Arn't symbols
> substantially lighter weight, which is why we generally have them at
> all?

Take this with a grain of salt as I was not around back then:

I think Ruby used to return a Fixnum for :foo in the past meaning that 
#methods and #instance_methods had the choice of returning a bunch of 
numbers that have no meaning for humans or to return strings.

I guess there wasn't a good enough reason for converting it to symbols 
when the Symbol class was introduced and thus it was decided that 
breaking backwards compatibility would not be a good idea.

I'm inferring that Ruby once used Fixnums instead of Symbols because of 
this:

irb(main):010:0> 5.send(:+.to_i, 5)
(irb):10: warning: do not use Fixnums as Symbols
=> 10

Feel free to correct me and/or add more information. I'm personally 
interested in Ruby's past so corrections or additions are very welcome.