From: Mark Somerville <ms@...>
Date: 2007-03-13T20:44:30+09:00
Subject: Re: BigDecimal bug?

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 08:08:07PM +0900, Mark Somerville wrote:
> I have tried altering the BigDecimal initialisation code, without success.
> Does anyone have any clues as to how to workaround this issue without
> pre-processing the "-.31" string? I'd think I could alter the "new" call to
> alter the malformed string a little.

I've managed to get a workaround going now (I realise this is a poor
substitute for fixing the poorly formed decimals), but I don't understand why I need
to wrap the alias_method inside class << self. Can anyone explain it to me?

class BigDecimal

  #why do I need to wrap this in class << self ???
  class << self
    alias_method 'original_new', 'new'
  end

  def self.new(value)
    value = "-0.#{$1}" if value =~ /^-\.(.+)$/
    return original_new(value)
  end

end

Cheers,

Mark