From: "Peña, Botp" <botp@...>
Date: 2004-05-28T15:49:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Nasty string growth performance

Joel VanderWerf [mailto:vjoel@PATH.Berkeley.EDU] wrote:

> Tom Trebisky wrote:
> > 	    buf = ""
> ...
> >                 buf += line
> 
> and
> 
> > 	    buf = Array.new
> ...
> >                 buf.push line
> 
> are not comparable constructs.
> 
> The first one is the same as
> 
>    buf = buf + line
> 
> which constructs a new string each time. The second one modifies the 
> existing array in place, which is why you saw better performance.
> 
> What you probably want is
> 
>    buf << line
> 
> This just concatenates line on the end of the buf string, 
> modifying buf 
> in place. 


Forgive my ignorance, but
may I know the reason why

   buf += line

was made to act different from

   buf << line

Of course, I prefer the syntax of the former w the behavior of the latter.
It's commonplace (for nubies ie :).

kind regards -botp