From: gabriele renzi <surrender_it@...>
Date: 2005-05-12T17:20:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Standard Library patches - rational, delegate

Dave Burt ha scritto:
> Hi,
> 
> I have two small things I would like to see changed in the standard library:
> delegate.rb
> rational.rb
> 
> I would like to hear from the list:
> * how this might happen
> * any comments on my changes
> 
> The first is a small change to Delegate to prevent infinite recursion from 
> occurring when an object is assigned to delegate to itself.

if this is a fix you can point out the bug on the ruby issue tracker on 
rubyforge, and attach the patch. Or you can post it on ruby-core.

> The second are some enhancements to Rational, mainly to make it more 
> friendly with Floats and Strings, allowing rationals to be made like 
> Rational("2/3"), Rational("1.2e-10"), Rational(0.5), as well as adding to_r 
> methods to String and Float.

This sounds more of an RCR, use RCRChive.net .

> I've added approximation methods (similar to those recently discussed), 
> which are useful when trying to reduce an approximate Float to its original 
> representation, like this:
> 1.6.to_r  #=> Rational(3602879701896397, 2251799813685248)
> 1.6.to_r.approximate  #=> Rational(8, 5)
> I've also fixed to_f so that it doesn't return NaN for rationals with large 
> denominators, and added radix selection in to_s like Integers have.

I wonder if this would'nt cause a problem for new users which could get 
the false sense of security from float operations.
Also, have you thought of intehration with BigDecimal ?
And finaly.. I don't love the to_x methods (since there is so little 
room for them), but in general I think your patch makes sense.