From: linas <geek@...>
Date: 2002-01-16T07:33:58+09:00
Subject: Re: I/O gets and integers

thanks, that helps.

-linas

On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

>
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, linas wrote:
> > Whenever i use gets to retireve user input, it always retrieves it as a
> > string. Is there anyway that it can be retireved as an integer (or real
> > number)?
>
> There's no method that does exactly that, because instead you combine gets
> with a method that does the kind of conversion you want. You see, the
> number could be written in different numbering systems (2,8,10,16,64),
> with or without a prefix, etc.
>
> You can use Integer(gets) to get an integer written Ruby-style (decimal
> integers not starting with zero; zero reserved to indicate other numbering
> systems).
>
> You can use Float(gets) to get a floating-point number. This is called a
> "Real" number in Pascal, but this is extremely misleading: all it is is
> scientific notation with a fixed number of digits no matter how big the
> number is.
>
> If you want to accept both Integers and Floats, you can do
> this: (temp=gets; Integer(temp) rescue Float(temp)) but there is a gotcha
> when mixing integers and floats carelessly (integer divided by integer
> gives an integer), so if you want you can append .to_f to that to make
> sure every result is a Float even when it was written as an Integer.
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Mathieu Bouchard                   http://hostname.2y.net/~matju
>
>
>
>
>