Re: Literal inconsistency

On 9/4/06, Christian Neukirchen <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I don't see the inconsistency.  Regexps are immutable anyway, so this
> optimization is useful.  You probably wanted Regexp.new("hello")?

Well, immutable is relative:

  2.times do
    a = /hello/
    puts a.instance_eval { @a }
    a.instance_eval { @a = 5 }
  end

This prints nil, then 5. So only part of a regexp is really immutable.

Also, note that Regexp.new("hello") compiles the regexp on each
execution. Regexp.new(/hello/) probably doesn't, so that would work.

Anyway, I agree there is a work-around, and inconsistent is relative
too. It just bit me unexpectedly, and it seemed inconsistent to me.

Peter