From: Martin Weber <Ephaeton@...>
Date: 2001-11-20T21:08:52+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:25908] Re: String#== : Why not error with different type?

On Tue, Nov 20, 2001 at 08:51:53PM +0900, Ryo Furue wrote:

> I think it would be nice if String#== raised error if the argument
> isn't a String.  What was the reason why the designer(s) of the String
> class decided the equality method should return false as
> 
>  	a = "2"
> 	b = 2
> 	a == b # => false
> 
> ?  I wish the last line raised an error....

Imho it should only raise an error if there is no
method for arg2 which does #to_s.

Imho a==b should be a==b.to_s implicitely, raise an
error if b has no to_s method, and otherwise use the
returned value of to_s to do the comparison. Thus in
your example,

a="2"
b=2
a==b # -> should be true if b has #to_s

Martin Weber