From: Florian Gross <flgr@...>
Date: 2005-03-20T01:59:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Case with strings

Aquila wrote:

> Actually the code has less duplication, this was just an example. But why
> doesn't this work:
> def keyToName(key)
>         case key.strip
> ...
>                 when "h" "Element handlers"
>                 when "a" "See also"
>                 else "Unknown key"
>         end
> end
> 
> puts keyToName("a")
> puts keyToName('a')
> It gives "Unknown key" twice, instead of "See also" at least once.

Hah, I knew that you weren't supposed to use when like that. You're 
actually doing this with the above code:

case key.strip
   when "hElement handlers"
   when "aSee also"
   else "Unknown key"
end

Which of course isn't what you want. Put a "then" or ":" between the 
condition and the action parts and it will work.

>>Though I wonder if you're not better of with a Hash:
>>
>>puts({
>>   "c" => "Synopsis",
>>   "s" => "Category",
>>   ...
>>}[key.strip])
> 
> That sounds nice, is that code faster?

It ought to be faster, especially when you assign the Hash to a 
constant, but I doubt that it will matter much.