From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-10-12T03:59:49+09:00
Subject: Re: PHP-like Array/Hash creation in Ruby

On Thu, 12 Oct 2006, Jan Reitz wrote:

> thanks for your insights response ara.
> i did my last post before reading your first...
>
> the Alib::OrderedAutoHash looks very nice and is one of the things that
> i searched.
>
> i think i allways used sparse arrays|hashes before, with some little
> exceptions while programming in C#....
>
> your example with 2**128 showed me that php uses sparse arrays/hashes
> because when i was using something like $serial_number[7099144]='blah'
> i would have instantly beaten the allowed ram limit.
>
> i think i became a little savaged while using php (hope this is proper
> english)
> maybe i can still be saved, i'm programming a board game (carcasonne)
> in gtk to learn ruby.
>
> back on track about auto-re-initialization of nil (or empty variable is
> better, i think) to Hash (forget about Array) i found that the nils all
> have the same id, so by changing one of them to an Array i would turn
> them all.
> i dont want something like this powerfull "become" from smalltalk some
> other ppl talked about, it can (infact must) get a new id, and does not
> need to retain its interior (whats in nil that i wanted to retain)
>
> anyone having an idea of how to do this ?

http://rubyforge.org/projects/evil/

the name says it all ;-)

-a
-- 
my religion is very simple.  my religion is kindness. -- the dalai lama