From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2004-09-06T15:01:55+09:00
Subject: Re: OK... :) question about hash and array literals

Martin DeMello wrote:
> Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@ruby-lang.org> wrote:
> 
>>Hmm, I thought hash order would be ignored always for compares.
>>Optional use of order is an interesting idea, although I want better
>>looking API than
>>
>>| {1=>2, 3=>4}.ordered != {3=>4, 1=>2}.ordered
> 
> 
> How about { 1=>2, 3=>4 } !~ { 3=>4, 1=>2 }
>           { 1=>2, 3=>4 } =~ { 1=>2, 3=>4 }
> 
> OTOH, that syntax might more profitably be reserved for pattern
> matching, which would also be a nice thing to have.

I am not especially worried about testing equality with or without
order.

In nearly five years of Ruby, I cannot recall ever comparing two
hashes for equality at all.

But if I could have guaranteed order in hash literals and insertion
order preserved in general, I would be very happy.

More than half the code I have written would benefit from that in
some small way (including where I use YAML).


Hal