From: Alexander Schofield <pcs3@...>
Date: 2002-01-22T07:08:23+09:00
Subject: Re: converting chars to numeric

You can use a range index like:
s[0..0] (extracts only the first char as string)
Also useful for extracting substrings like
s[0..2], extracts '456'

Mark Probert wrote:
> 
> Hi.
> 
> I am new to ruby and coming from a Perl environment.
> 
> Can someone tell me if there is a nice way to do the following:
> 
>          s = "4567"
>          a = s[0]                # --> I want the value '4' not '54', the
> ASCII value of 4
>          b = s[1]                # --> 5
>          a + b                   # --> 9
> 
> I can do this by saying
> 
>          a = s[0] - 48
> 
> though this seems a might ugly for ruby :-).
> 
> TIA,
> 
> -mark.