From: "Mehr, Assaph (Assaph)" <assaph@...>
Date: 2004-09-09T09:42:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Should String.upcase! work on a segment of a string?


>Question: Should String.upcase! work on a segment of a string?
>
>We can assign to a sub-string, so I thought that a bang-method might
also work on a sub-string.
>
>  s = 'AA11zz'		# define a string
>
>  > s[4..5].upcase!	# try to change part of it
>  => "ZZ"                       # yeah, ok, the new string is changed,
but...
>
>  > s
>  => "AA11zz"		# the original string wasn't affected
>
>  > s[4..5] = s[4..5].upcase    # so, do it by-hand
>  => "ZZ"
>
>  > s				# and it's ok
>  => "AA11ZZ"
>
>Are there edge cases where this wouldn't be appropriate?

The String#[] method creates a new string object. Any method you send to
it (like upcase) will operatate on it and not on the original object.

Even if we disregard that a lot of existing code relies on it, how would
you differentiate between:
	s[4..5].upcase	# should that return 'AA11ZZ' as a new object?
	s[4..5].upcase!	# to match what is returned here?
How could you then get just the 'ZZ' part?