From: Wiktor Macura <wmacura@...>
Date: 2006-06-01T22:19:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Constant Hash strangeness

Hello.

Well, thanks for taking the time to do the article... and if you need
anyone to proof-read/test it. :)

Cheers.

Wiktor

On 5/31/06, Austin Ziegler <halostatue@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/06, Wiktor Macura <wmacura@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 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?
>
> Constants don't work the way that you think they do. I'll be posting
> an article about this soon; I just haven't decided where to put it.
>
> -austin
> --
> Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
>                * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca
>
>