From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2004-09-30T04:40:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Range of regexps?

In article <EF8415DB-1219-11D9-8E07-000A95BA45F8@grayproductions.net>,
James Edward Gray II  <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:
>On Sep 29, 2004, at 5:47 AM, Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:
>
>> Have a question (as usual, from a thread on ruby-forum.org,
>> http://www.ruby-forum.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=75) :
>>
>> Expression /start/../end/ is invalid because Regexp doesn't have <=>
>> method, but this code is printed in Pickaxe:
>>
>> while gets
>>   print if /start/../end/
>> end
>
>Robert gave a great answer, so I'll just add that this syntax doesn't 
>seem to be well liked.  I believe I've read in two places now that it 
>may be going away in the future and is to be avoided.  Just FYI.
>

It's also known as the flip-flop operator.  It was borrowed from Perl.  
There was a long thread about this about six months ago, I think it was 
called "Save the flip-flop op" or somesuch (I started it). 

I will be sorry to see it go.

Phil