From: Jamis Buck <jamis@37signals.com>
Date: 2005-10-19T07:52:01+09:00
Subject: Re: bad String blows up world using length method!!!!!!!!!

Xeno,

It works for me:

   > touch empty.txt
   > irb
   irb> File.read('empty.txt').size
   -> 0

Can you give an example where it breaks?

- Jamis

On Oct 18, 2005, at 4:49 PM, Xeno Campanoli wrote:

> Yeah, I'm pissed.  This kind of thing shouldn't happen.
>
> You read in a file.  It's empty.  You get an empty file in what  
> you'd think
> was a string, so you take the length, and it blows up the world in  
> other
> parts of your program!  You check to see if it's a string with an:
>
>     contentvariable.is_a?String
>
> and sure enough, it thinks it's a String, but sure enough, when you go
>
> if contentvariable.size then
>
> it also blows up with that synonym.  Sorry to be less than cordial  
> here, but
> I really would have liked this to work.
>
> Sincerely, Xeno Campanoli, working with Ruby on the Job.
> xc
>
>