From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2005-12-13T06:13:19+09:00
Subject: Re: new to Ruby - pls help in translating this

Chad Perrin wrote:
...
> I don't see any particular reason to regard "ARGF.each do |elem|" as
> better than "while gets", though.  The latter of the two is more like

"ARGF.each do |elem|" has two advantages:

(1) easier to modify to use a different iteration method, such as map or 
grep.

(2) easier to modify to use a different kind of enumerable, like an 
array or string, rather than a file or a duck-file like ARGF.

(1) and (2) mean that code written using "ARGF.each do |elem|" can more 
easily be abstracted/refactored into library code. Of course, if you are 
writing a one-liner...

Also, I prefer being explicit about the variable elem, rather than using 
$_, but that's me.

-- 
        vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407