From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2008-07-22T06:08:10+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby/Java strings solved the Ruby way

Jim Menard wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Charles Oliver Nutter
> <charles.nutter@sun.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>> So I propose that instead of always decoding incoming Ruby String into a
>> Java String when calling a Java method, we introduce a new type--call it
>> JString for now--that represents a Java string. When you require in the Java
>> integration support, it would add to Ruby String a method to_jstring (or
>> to_String or hey, toString?). So for calls from Ruby to Java, we'd follow
>> Ruby coercion protocols and only accept either JString or objects that
>> coerce to JString.
>>
>> Likewise, coming from Java to Ruby, we wouldn't automatically coerce; we'd
>> return a JString object that implements to_str. You can then usually pass
>> that to String APIs, or just coerce it immediately and go on with your
>> business. Since this latter change would break some apps that expect Java
>> strings to always be coerced, it would be saved for the next major release
>> of JRuby and thoroughly discussed.
> 
> This sounds like an excellent compromise. I vote for to_jstring
> because it looks most Ruby-esque.

Also up for debate is whether boxed primitives from Java should behave 
the same way, with a JInteger, JFloat, and so on that can coerce to 
Fixnum or Float. But boxed primitives are considerably cheaper to coerce 
than Strings, so it may not be worth it.

- Charlie