From: Yuri Leikind <YuriLeikind@...>
Date: 2001-11-14T03:10:04+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:25050] Re: Set class in Ruby

Jason Voegele wrote:
> 
> >> However, sometimes it's convenient to have Sets, collections where
> >> there's only ever one of each element. These have different semantics
> >> to arrays: they are not necessarily ordered, attempting to add an
> >> element doesn't necessarily increase the size, and so on.
> >
> > So, why doesn't Ruby have Set as a built-in class?
> 
> Paul Brannan and I are working on implementing a library of data structures
> and algorithms for Ruby to fill this gap.  It is not yet available, but I
> have a Set class that you can get at:
> 
> http://www.jvoegele.com/ruby/Set.rb
> 
> Paul also has a similar one that may suit your needs.

Yes, cool, this one's pretty similar to what I have.

I'd just add a couple of methods:

An inspect method, something like that:

   def inspect
      '< ' + 
      @store.keys.collect{|e| 
         e.inspect
      }.join(' ')  + ' >'
   end

A dup method, to avoid this:

irb(main):003:0> a = Set.new([1 , 2 , 3])
#<Set:0x4018ffd8  @store={1=>true, 2=>true, 3=>true}>
irb(main):005:0> b=a.dup
#<Set:0x4017ec24  @store={1=>true, 2=>true, 3=>true}>
irb(main):006:0> b.add 'one more'
true
irb(main):007:0> p a, b
#<Set:0x4018ffd8  @store={1=>true, 2=>true, "one more"=>true, 3=>true}>
#<Set:0x4017ec24  @store={1=>true, 2=>true, "one more"=>true, 3=>true}>

Here @store is not dupped which leads to 2 references
to one object instead of two objects

A dup method could look like this

     def dup
        Set.new(@store.keys)
     end

Also, to be able to use sets as hash keys, #hash method
should be defined. #hash should return the same value
for all equal sets. My colleague wrote it
like this:

      def
hash                                                                                    
           key =
size                                                                          
           @store.each_key {
|k|                                                                      
                  key ^=
k.hash                                                               
          
}                                                                                   
           return
key                                                                          
      end 


> 
> It is my hope that we'll be able to deliver something that becomes a
> standard part of the Ruby programmer's toolset.

Well, that's the reason for my writing this letter - suggestion
that we have Set class, like yours, built in the language.

So I am interested in other people's opinions on the topic -
should there be a built-in Set class, and if no, why?

-- 
Best regards,
Yuri Leikind