From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2007-09-17T23:12:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie help

Hi --

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, 7stud -- wrote:

> unknown wrote:
>>> After editing that sentence a couple of times, I completely changed the
>>> meaning into something quite confusing.  A symbol *always* refers to a
>>> string.  That should read:
>>
>> I'm not sure I'd put it that way. A symbol, like a string, can always
>> be represented by characters, but I don't think a symbol actually
>> refers to a string, any more than the string refers to the symbol. But
>> I may be misunderstanding what you mean.
>>
>
> Then where is the error in this diagram:
>
>
> s1 = :hello
> s2 = :hello
> s3 = :hello
>
>    "hello"
>       ^
>       |
>       |
>   symbol_obj
>   id:2545934
>   ^   ^   ^
>   |   |   |
>   s1  s2  s3

If the top arrow means that the symbol :hello contains a reference to
a string "hello", in the same way that s1-3 are bound to references to
:hello, then I would say that's the error. A symbol can be converted
to a string, such that the string represents the same sequence of
characters as the symbol; but the symbol is not a reference to a
string object.


David

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