From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-08-25T07:36:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Alternative to String#to_i ?

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006, Jeremy Lizt wrote:

> Thanks to everyone for the quick response. The Integer suggestion works
> great, but I'll point out one wrinkle that I encountered:
>
> Integer nil # => 0
>
> That was a small surprise. (These zeros keep popping up when you may
> not expect them!) My little conversion method now works fine and looks
> like this:
>
>  def string_to_i(str)
>    if str.nil? then return nil else Integer str end
>  rescue nil
>  end

fyi.

harp:~ > irb
irb(main):001:0> Integer '08'
ArgumentError: invalid value for Integer: "08"
         from (irb):1:in `Integer'
         from (irb):1

i use this

#
# convert a string to an integer of any base
#
   def strtod s, opts = {}
     base = opts['base'] || opts[:base] || 10
     case base
       when 2
         s = "0b#{ s }" unless s =~ %r/^0b\d/
       when 8
         s = "0#{ s }" unless s =~ %r/^0\d/
       when 16
         s = "0x#{ s }" unless s =~ %r/^0x\d/
     end
     Integer s
   end

#
# convert a string to an integer base 10
#
   def atoi s
     strtod "#{ s }".gsub(%r/^0+/,''), :base => 10
   end

-a
-- 
to foster inner awareness, introspection, and reasoning is more efficient than
meditation and prayer.
- h.h. the 14th dalai lama