From: rio4ruby <rio4ruby@...>
Date: 2006-01-10T08:38:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Rio 0.3.7

Duane Johnson wrote:
> > Copy a gzipped file un-gzipping it
> >  rio('afile.gz').gzip > rio('afile')
> >
> Why does 'gzip' unzip?  How would one zip something up?

Rio#gzip puts a Rio in gzip mode, so the referenced
file will be read from and written to properly. We could
rewrite the example:

 a_rio_referencing_a_gzipped_file = rio('afile.gz).gzip
 a_rio_referencing_a_file = rio('afile')
 a_rio_referencing_a_gzipped_file > a_rio_referencing_a_file

> How would one zip something up?

Turn the arrow around:
 rio('afile.gz').gzip < rio('afile')

> Curious... why does +all+ take square brackets when +files+ uses
> parens?  Seems inconsistent upon first viewing.

Both +files+ and +all+ are configuration methods.

The usage:

  anarray = rio('adir').all['*.rb']

is syntactic sugar for

  anarray = rio('adir').all.entries('*.rb').to_a

The abbreviated usage works because:
  1. Rio#entries is the default selection method when iterating
     over directories.
  2. The subscript operator passes its arguments to the most
     recently called selection method (in this case +entries+,
     even though it was never *explicitly* called) before it
     calls +to_a+.
  3. Rio#all returns the Rio which called it. (All configuration
     methods do this, to support the readable shortened syntax)

Since Rio#files is also a configuration method, it can be used
similarly:

  rio('adir').files('*.rb') { |f| ... } # iterate over .rb files
  rio('adir').files['*.rb']             # returns an array of .rb files
  rio('adir').files('*.rb') > 'bdir'    # copies .rb files to 'bdir'

Hope this helps.
-Christopher