From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2008-04-25T01:16:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Pointer concept in Ruby ?


From: "I単aki Baz Castillo" <ibc@aliax.net>
>
> Hi, I'd like to have a variable pointing to a Hash/Array element, so
> if I modify the variable then the Hash/Array element is modified too.
>
> AFAIK this is not possible with Ruby since the abscense of pointer
> concept. I want the following:
>
>  array = [ "aaa", "bbb", "ccc" ]
>
>  a1 = array[1]._some_method_
>  => "bbb"
>
>  a1 = "BBB"
>  => "BBB"
>
>  a[1]
>  => "BBB"
>
> Is it possible in some way? Thanks a lot.

In general this not easily possible with Ruby, and you'll probably want to
rethink your design so that you don't need to do that.

However, there is a String#replace method, which may be useful if you're
sure this is what you want to do:

=> ["aaa", "bbb", "ccc"]
>> a1 = array[1]
=> "bbb"
>> a1.replace "BBB"
=> "BBB"
>> array[1]
=> "BBB"


Regards,

Bill