From: John Lam <drjflam@...>
Date: 2006-02-11T05:00:29+09:00
Subject: Preserve value-type semantics in imported types

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I'm importing a value type from the CLR and I'd like to preserve value type
semantics in Ruby ... I'm not sure this can be done.

Consider the Point struct in C# as an example:

Point p1 =3D new Point(2, 3);
Point p2 =3D p1;  // value types get copied in the CLR upon assignment
p2.X +=3D 1;
Assert.Equals(p1.X + 1, p2.X);

So the equivalent code that uses my RubyCLR bridge doesn't display the
equivalent semantics:

p1 =3D Point.new(2, 3)
p2 =3D p1  # the object reference gets copied in Ruby, so this is now an al=
ias
p2.X +=3D 1
assert_equal p1.X, p2.X

The value types are stored as opaque blobs in Ruby's T_DATA struct.

Since I can't overload the assignment operator, are there any tricks that
can help me? Or do I have to write a custom implementation of clone for
value types that memcpys the T_DATA struct?

Thanks
-John
http://www.iunknown.com

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