From: Paul Lutus <nospam@...>
Date: 2006-09-20T04:40:14+09:00
Subject: Re: => A newb question

Dominic Son wrote:

> why did matz choose to use '=>' to declare things instead of just making
> them all '=' ?

Umm, that isn't what '=>' does.

a = b # assign b's value to a

a => b # associate key a with value b

> he cut our time marginally by letting us not put a ';' at the end of a
> line, but now we have to  put a '>' with '='...

Not unless you know what it does.

> (i'm gonna guess a = operator is for assigning a value, whereas a => is
> for assigning symbols? )

------------------------------------------

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

a = { "name" => "Elvis", "status" => "Left the building", "date" => 1977 }

a.keys.each do |key|
print "#{key} => #{a[key]}\n"
end

------------------------------------------

Output:

status => Left the building
name => Elvis
date => 1977

Note that the output order doesn't reflect the input order.

-- 
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com