From: Charles Mills <cmills@...>
Date: 2004-12-02T05:55:28+09:00
Subject: Re: to_s, inspect, etc.

On Dec 1, 2004, at 12:27 PM, itsme213 wrote:

> It sounds from the discussion that we could benefit from a well 
> thought out
> (and/or well described!) framework for a set of print-related methods. 
> I
> know consistent use of these would help _me_ a lot.
>
> A naive (and incomplete and incorrect) example. Any resemblance to 
> real Ruby
> methods is purely accidental.
>
> - #short: a context-insensitive short string (no newlines) identifying 
> the
> object + class
what about just using to_s
"#<Class:ID>>1>"

> - #probe: 1-level deep object structure + #short descriptions of 2nd 
> level,
> single line
> - #probe n: N-level deep object structure
> - #probe n Filter: N-level deep object structure only showing elements 
> of
> Filter

These could be useful for some sort of graphing package (showing object 
graphs) / object browser.

> - #inspect: show full recursive object structure, ending at [String, 
> Symbol,
> Int, ...]
> - #identify should show short string for object identification e.g. 
> just a
> 'name' attribute
> - Object#short by default will print class name + #to_s
> - #to_s should ....
> - Object#inspect by default will ....
>
I think the current framework (#to_s and #inspect) does the job... 
seems like this would create extra work for developers and muck up the 
name space.  It is probably enough to just override Object#inspect in 
really complicated classes (if someone else is going to be using them).

-Charlie