From: VICTOR GOLDBERG <vmgoldberg@...>
Date: 2008-05-07T23:35:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Interesting result of a newbie mistake

Thank you all that responded.
maestroiut's  explanation was especially enlightening.

V�ctor

================================================

<maestroiut-rubytalk@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:112782.26330.qm@web54305.mail.re2.yahoo.com...


----- Original Message ----
> From: VICTOR GOLDBERG <vmgoldberg@verizon.net>
> To: ruby-talk ML <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 7, 2008 1:10:17 PM
> Subject: Interesting result of a newbie mistake
>
> Instead of writing
> a = %w{ ant cat dog }
> I wrote
> a = %{ ant cat dog }

That defines a string.

> puts a[2]        -->        110

The reason is that indexing a string in Ruby 1.8 and previous versions 
returns the character code.
That usually comes as a surprise to beginners. This behavior changes in Ruby 
1.9 to return the character (see 
http://eigenclass.org/hiki.rb?Changes+in+Ruby+1.9#l116).

See the following IRB Ruby 1.8 session:

$ irb
>> a = %{ ant cat dog }
=> " ant cat dog "
>> a.class
a.class
=> String
>> a[2]
a[2]
=> 110
>> a[2].chr
a[2].chr
=> "n"
>>
>
> I didn't find an explanation for this result in Dave Thomas' book
> Anybody volunteers a response?

If you look for the String class and the chr method into the index of the 
first edition
http://ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/
you will find examples showing this behavior.

Christophe

>
> Thanks,
> V�ctor