From: "Brian Schröder" <ruby.brian@...>
Date: 2005-07-28T19:15:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Idea for Ruby 2.0

On 28/07/05, Nikolai Weibull
<mailing-lists.ruby-talk@rawuncut.elitemail.org> wrote:
> Lately I've found myself using pseudo-anonymous variables a lot, e.g.,
> something like this:
> 
> [[1, 2], [2, 3], [3, 4]].each{ |first, _| fs << first }
> 
> The idea is that I'm not interested in the second part of the internal
> arrays, only the first.  The lowline works, but obviously for one
> parameter, as it is a valid identifier.  I was thinking whether Ruby 2.0
> should introduce I-don't-care-type variables, like Haskell or Prolog
> has.  It would make all identifiers beginning with a lowline invalid,
> except in parameter-lists, which could mean too much incompatability
> with Ruby 1.x, but perhaps it's worth at least some thought?,
>         nikolai
> 
> --
> Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/!
> Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
> main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}
> 
> 

Why would it make all identifiers beginning with an underscore
invalid? One don't care variable should be enough for everybody I
think ;-).

a, _, b, _, c = *function()

would make sense to me, though

a, _a, b, _b, c = *function()

could continue to set five variables.

Otherwise I like this at least on first sight. I indeed needed it for
some small scripts just a short while ago. There I used something like
my second example and simply ignored _a and _b, but the first example
would have been less intrusive to me.

regards,

Brian

-- 
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