From: mirian@... (Mirian Crzig Lennox)
Date: 2001-05-29T11:18:30+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:15902] Re: is it possible to dynamically coerce objects  types in Ruby?

In article <3B38E23D@operamail.com>,
Benjamin J. Tilly <ben_tilly@operamail.com> wrote:
>You will not be far wrong if you think of "to_int" as being
>to_i combined with the assertion that what you are dealing
>with was supposed to be "integer-like".
>
>That is, to_i will endeavour to give you an integer, no matter
>how poorly the shoe fits, while to_int will give you an
>integer, but not if it means lopping off a toe or three in
>the process.  If you wish you can think of the missing "nt"
>in to_i to represent the lopped off toes from trying to make
>the shoe fit what it didn't... :-)

*grin*  I like this image.  I didn't understand the different between
the two methods at first, but it makes sense now.

So this is why "Hello".to_i returns 0, but "Hello".to_int is an error.
The 0 represents how many toes are left after making the shoe fit. :)

--Mirian