From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2004-08-06T23:41:27+09:00
Subject: Re: %w for symbols

Hi --

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004, Eric Hodel wrote:

> Gavin Sinclair (gsinclair@soyabean.com.au) wrote:
> 
> > On Friday, August 6, 2004, 9:18:12 PM, Austin wrote:
> > 
> > > On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 16:00:32 +0900, Caio Chassot <k@v2studio.com> wrote:
> > >> Is there any similar notation to %w[ word word2 word3 ] that returns an
> > >> array of symbols instead of strings?
> > >> 
> > >> If not, are there any plans for it in future ruby? Is it a good idea anyway?
> > >> 
> > >> (Maybe that's a good example of where we could use macros?)
> > 
> > > It seems common enough that it might be nice to have this. Perhaps
> > > %W{} instead of %w{} ?
> > 
> > I don't object to the feature either.  I think %s{} makes more sense,
> > though.
> 
> %s is already used:
> 
> $ ruby
> p %s(foo bar baz)
> ^D
> :"foo bar baz"

That actually points to another thing I was wondering about, namely,
what would be the %?{ } equivalent of:

  ["abc".intern, "hi there".intern]

You couldn't do (using %m as a placeholder here):

  %m{abc hi there}

It would have to be

  %m{abc "hi there"}

I'm just wondering whether that would lead down a path of escape
syntax that would make it less streamlined.


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net