From: djberg96@... (Daniel Berger)
Date: 2004-06-14T22:23:37+09:00
Subject: Re: [RCR]: Replace pack and unpack with OO versions

dejaspam@batkins.com (Bill Atkins) wrote in message news:<e6056acc.0406131938.6c6e246a@posting.google.com>...
> Rather than having code like this:
> 
> flags, ignore, length, name = data.unpack "nnna*"
> 
> let's try this:
> 
> u = Unpacker.new data
> flags, ignore, length, name = u.word, u.word, u.word, u.string
> 
> I think this looks a lot neater and is much more maintainable.  A
> similar thing could be done with pack.
> 
> p = Packer.new
> p.word 0x01
> p.word 0x00
> p.word 0x08
> p.string "ERERER"
> 
> p.to_s => packed version
> 
> Any ideas on this before I draft it up into a real RCR?
> 
> Bill Atkins

I mentioned this a *long* time ago, but didn't get much feedback.  If
I recall, I was inspired in part by the port of
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel, in which there's a lot of pack/unpack going
on.

http://ruby-talk.com/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/44847

I definitely support the idea.

Regards,

Dan