From: Justin Collins <justincollins@...>
Date: 2008-02-10T07:54:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Recursive array bug?

Siep Korteling wrote:
> I've just reinvented the recursive array.
>
> a = ["a rose is "]
> a << a
>
> Expecting the end of the world, or at least my ruby session, I did:
>
> a.flatten!
>
> But flatten! was just waiting for idiots like me and returned a polite
> error. Investigating my unflattened array I found something strange.
>
> p a[1][1][1][0]
> =>a rose is
>
> p a[0]
> => a rose is
>
> p a[0][0]
> =>97
> Huh? I expected nil.
>
> p a[0][0][0]
> =>1
> and it keeps returning 1's as far as I can see. Is this a bug or am I
> just being silly?
>
> Regards,
>
> Siep
>   


Does this help?

irb(main):001:0> a = [ "array" ]
=> ["array"]
irb(main):002:0> a << a
=> ["array", [...]]
irb(main):003:0> a[0]   # This is Array#[]
=> "array"
irb(main):004:0> a[0][0] # This is String#[]
=> 97
irb(main):005:0> a[0][0][0] # This is Fixnum#[]
=> 1
irb(main):006:0> a[0][0][0][0][0] # This is also Fixnum#[]
=> 1

-Justin