From: Robert Feldt <feldt@...>
Date: 2001-10-14T11:15:14+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:22503] Re: Open-ended ranges

On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, Sean Russell wrote:

> Occasionally, I encounter a situation where having an open-ended range 
> would be nice... or, more accurately, a default MAX value.  For instance, 
> I'd sometimes like to say:
> 
>         (1..)                   # to infinity and beyond!
>
Ruby doesn't have infinite or unbounded data (by default) structs so what
should this mean? We would have to add Inf (might be good for other
situations) and introduce Object#default_max_value, but how to handle

(1..).to_a

without going for lazy evaluation?

> Yeah, the last case only saves two characters, but you get the idea.  First:
> 
> 1) does anyone else think this would be useful?
>
I'm skeptical, but maybe your answers to my q's above can make me
change my mind?! ;-)

> 2) would this complicate the Ruby interpreter/parser needlessly?
> 
Probably...

> PS.  I was following the "versioned require" discussion for a while, but it 
> seems as if talk surrounding it has died out.  Is anyone still working on 
> this?  I'd *really* like a standard way of saying:
> 
>         require "somemodule/someclass" (2.0..3.5)
> 
Many people seem to think that something along those lines would be a
good thing. There is not yet a consensus on which semantics to use and how
to implement. Maybe the RAA.succ/RubyGems discussion/solution can revive
this discussion again?

Regards,

Robert