From: Alex Gutteridge <alexg@...>
Date: 2007-08-21T15:57:45+09:00
Subject: Re: (String * Fixnum) and (Fixnum * String)

On 21 Aug 2007, at 15:12, Dan wrote:

> I understand that ruby being strongly typed means you can only do  
> "sensible"
> things with the types you are working with. However, aren't the  
> examples
> above pretty much equivalent? or is it a precedence thing? Trying  
> to answer
> my own question is it because the "*" operator for a Fixnum only  
> accepts
> another Fixnum/Bignum, while the "*" operator for a String only  
> allows a
> Fixnum, because it sure doesn't let you do String * String (and why  
> would
> you really).

To clarify my previous answer, the important thing is to realise that  
most 'operators' in Ruby are just methods that look funny. So

3 * 2

Is just another way of writing

3.* 2

or

3.send(:*,2)

And hence 'foo' * 2 is very different to 2 * 'foo' in terms of the  
underlying method that is called.
Alex Gutteridge

Bioinformatics Center
Kyoto University