From: Wiktor Macura <wmacura@...>
Date: 2006-06-01T04:29:39+09:00
Subject: Constant Hash strangeness

Hello.

This seems to be trivial, yet I can't find an explanation for it
anywhere online. Apologies if I'm asking the obvious.

If you create a constant hash:

     CONSTANTHASH = { :foo => "foobar" }
     x = CONSTANTHASH[:foo]
     x << "-suffix"
     p CONSTANTHASH

One gets the following output:

     { :foo => "foobar-suffix" }
     nil

So, this sort of makes sense if one considers that variables in Ruby
are references. So Ruby only protects the hash, not the values keys in
the hash point to. But... is there any way to protect the values, and
not just the keys?

Thanks.

Warm Regards,

Wiktor Macura