From: Ian Macdonald <ian@...>
Date: 2005-02-26T05:12:11+09:00
Subject: Purpose of rb_assoc_new()

Hello,

I recently took over the maintenance of the Ruby/LDAP library and am
stuck on interpreting the following line:

  tmp = rb_assoc_new (op, rb_ary_new ());

I can't find an explanation of rb_assoc_new() anywhere. It's used all
over the Ruby source code and yet I still can't figure what's going on.

I know that rb_ary_new() makes a new array, which is presumably being
associated with tmp, but what does op have to do with it?

array.c has the definition:

 VALUE   
 rb_assoc_new(car, cdr)
     VALUE car, cdr;
 {
     VALUE ary;
 
     ary = rb_ary_new2(2);
     RARRAY(ary)->ptr[0] = car;
     RARRAY(ary)->ptr[1] = cdr;
     RARRAY(ary)->len = 2;
     
     return ary;
 }       

Is this just a convenient way to instantiate a two element array?

Ian
-- 
Ian Macdonald               | He knew the tavernes well in every toun.   
System Administrator        | -- Geoffrey Chaucer 
ian@caliban.org             | 
http://www.caliban.org      | 
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