From: Simon Krahnke <overlord@...>
Date: 2007-10-06T00:35:03+09:00
Subject: Re: finding obscure documentation

* Lloyd Linklater <lloyd@2live4.com> (15:29) schrieb:

> I have learned that you can turn a number to octal (or whatever) this
> way:

A number is not octal or decimal or whatever. String representations of
number are.

> p 123.to_s(8).to_i
> => 173

That's useless playing around with the methods. Parsing a octal string
representation as decimal is just broken.

> I seem to recall that there is something which will read *in* a number
> in an arbitrary numeric base, though I forget just how to do that.

You format a number with to_s(base=10) and parse it with to_i(base=10).

Thus if you have a string that contains an octal encoded number,
str.to_i(8) returns the number.

And if you got a strange thing the above misparsed "number", you do
num.to_s(10).to_i(8).

> My question is, where is this and things like it documented?  I have
> searched several books to no avail.

Just look for to_i, there is no magic involved.

mfg,                      simon .... l