From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2006-09-04T04:39:09+09:00
Subject: Re: A little idiom I like

Rick DeNatale wrote:
> On 9/1/06, Hal Fulton <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> wrote:
>> Here's a little something I like. YMMV.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>>
>>    require 'pathname'
>>
>>    class Pathname
>>      alias / +
>>    end
>>
>>    home = Pathname.new("/home/hal")
>>    proj = home/"projects"
>>    foo  = home/"projects/foobar"
>>
>>
> 
> Those poor Windows guys. <G>
> 
> irb(main):017:0> class Pathname
> irb(main):018:1>   alias \ +
> irb(main):019:1* end
> SyntaxError: compile error
> (irb):18: parse error, unexpected $undefined.
>  alias \ +
>         ^
>        from (irb):19
>        from :0
> irb(main):020:0>
> 

There's a workaround, right? Some combination of other quotes and double
backslashes? The R people get around it by using forward slashes
internally and only converting to backslashes when going out to a
Windows call that needs them. Even so, there was one thing I never did
figure out how to do in R, and ended up starting R up in the right
directory at the beginning of the session. :)