From: Daniel Brockman <daniel@...>
Date: 2005-07-13T02:11:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Question: arrays v. ranges and *.each

"David Douthitt" <ssrat@mailbag.com> writes:

> The results of the following code just seem strange to me:
>
>   print "\nTry 1:"
>   print [1..10].class, "\n"
>   [1..10].each { |x| print x, "\n" }
>
>   print "\nTry 2:"
>   print [1..10].pop.class, "\n"
>   [1..10].pop.each { |x| print x, "\n" }
>
> I would have thought that either 1) try 1 would output a sequence of
> numbers, and try 2 would result in an error (no such method
> Integer#each); or, 2) try 1 would output a series of numbers and try 2
> would result in an error (no such method Range#pop).  Perhaps - another
> option would be 3) try 1 would result in '1..10' and try 2 would result
> in something like '1..1' or an error?
>
> I'm confused...

Well, `a..b' is a range and `[foo]' is an array of one element, so
rather naturally `[a..b]' is an array containing one element: a range.

You can get an array from a range by doing `(a..b).to_a'.

   print "\nTry 2:"
   print (1..10).to_a.pop.class, "\n"
   (1..10).to_a.pop.each { |x| print x, "\n" }

Of course, ranges are already enumerable, so this works OK:

   print "\nTry 1:"
   print (1..10).class, "\n"
   (1..10).each { |x| print x, "\n" }

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>

    So really, we all have to ask ourselves:
    Am I waiting for RMS to do this?   --TTN.