From: Stephen Waits <steve@...>
Date: 2006-05-02T02:56:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Shortcut for [string].pack("p*").unpack("l").first ?

Berger, Daniel wrote:
> 
> If I want to get the underlying pointer address of a

Insert standard confusion about someone worried about pointers in Ruby. 
  Assume you know what you want.

> Ruby string, I can do this:
> 
> string = "hello"
> [string].pack("p*").unpack("l").first # 43329024
> 
> Anyway, is there a shorter way?  Or am I remembering
> incorrectly?

Why don't you just add it to String?

  irb(main):001:0> class String; def blah; 
[self].pack("p*").unpack("l").first; end; end
  => nil
  irb(main):002:0> "hello".blah
  => 43862144

--Steve