From: Jim Weirich <jim@...>
Date: 2005-03-17T13:36:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Symbol vs String

On Wednesday 16 March 2005 09:29 pm, Sam Roberts wrote:
> Quoting jim@weirichhouse.org, on Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 11:08:59AM +0900:
> > Use Strings for their content.  Use Symbols for their arbitrary
> > uniqueness.
>
> I used to do this, but ran into problems.
[...]
>   :octet-stream
>
>   NameError: undefined local variable or method `stream' for main:Object
>           from (irb):3
>   'octet-stream'.intern
>       ==>:"octet-stream"

Why couldn't you do :octet_stream ?  If your answer is because the dash comes 
from outside ruby, then I would suggest that the content ("_" vs "-") is 
important ... indicating that you should use strings.

-- 
-- Jim Weirich    jim@weirichhouse.org     http://onestepback.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, 
not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)