From: Tim Pease <tim.pease@...>
Date: 2008-02-09T06:52:38+09:00
Subject: Re: converting strings to booleans, symbols, etc

On Feb 8, 2008, at 11:51 AM, an an wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am parsing an xml document, and I wanted to know if there is a quick
> built in way to convert a string to a symbol or a boolean. an example
> xml doc would be:
>
> <test id="first" search="false">data</test>
>
> Now I know I can do some string compares, and set the variable
> accordingly, but I was wondering if there are shortcuts, much like the
> to_i method.
>

Here some sample code to get your brain churning ...

class String
   # The inverse of 'to_s'
   def s_ot
     begin
       return Integer(self)
     rescue ArgumentError
       (return Float(self)) rescue nil
     end

     case self
     when %r/^true|yes$/i; true
     when %r/^false|no$/i; false
     when %r/^nil|none$/i; nil
     when %r/^:\w+$/; self.tr(':','').to_sym
     else self end
   end
end

"1.0".s_ot    #=> 1.0 (as a Float)
"2".s_ot    #=> 2 (as a Fixnum)
"no".s_ot    #=> false
"none".s_ot    #=> nil
":string".s_ot    #=> :string (as a Symbol)


Happy Friday everyone!

Blessings,
TwP