From: nobu.nokada@...
Date: 2002-01-25T02:22:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Serious Array Bug in Ruby 1.6.6?

Hi,

At Fri, 25 Jan 2002 01:56:24 +0900,
William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@y.glue.umd.edu> wrote:
> At least, probably the book should not give that example.  In the more
> general terms, probably Ruby should change the behavior of Array.new (n,
> Hash.new) as opposite to, say, Array.new (n, "A").  By having all the
> members refer to the same hash object, Ruby has violated the Priciple
> of Least Surprise.  Yes, probably it is more consistent in the way Ruby
> behaves currently.  However, when a person creates an array of hashes, I
> don't think there is anybody who wants all the hashes to refer to the same
> thing, because it is useless.

It prohibits from sharing identical object.  Instead, you can:

  a = (1..2).collect {Hash.new}

Hmmm, I'll suggest to change Array.new to take a block when
no default value given.  That is:

  a = Array.new(2) {|i| Hash.new} # i is 0, 1...

-- 
Nobu Nakada