From: Mark Hubbart <discord@...>
Date: 2004-08-07T00:32:32+09:00
Subject: Re: %w for symbols


On Aug 6, 2004, at 7:01 AM, 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"

symbol words? how about:

%sw( these are symbols )
   => [:these, :are, :symbols]

As far as I can tell, the %?{} literal format allows for strings of 
indeterminate length. So it's really the %.*{} literal format.

cheers
Mark