From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju@...>
Date: 2006-03-25T14:00:24+09:00
Subject: Re: [PATCH] to_str, to_s and StringValue

On Sat, 25 Mar 2006, Gerardo Santana G�mez Garrido wrote:

> But while I was at it, I found only 7 references to to_str vs. 34
> references to to_s.
> Only these objects implement to_str:

The idea is to distinguish two kinds of conversion:
  to_s is for default conversion from some non-String to a String
  to_str is for conversion from some would-be-String to a String

the latter is reserved for classes that are made to be used in place of 
Strings, when they need to be converted to true Strings (with nodetype 
T_STRING, so that they can be accessed as a character array in C).

IMHO, this should be reserved to classes that implement all the same
methods as String, but it isn't the case, and it isn't easy, as the String
interface becomes ever more obese from 1.4 to 1.6 to 1.8 to 1.9 and some
upcoming incompatible changes in 2.0.

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| Mathieu Bouchard - t�l:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
| Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montr�al QC Canada