From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-03-14T02:27:53+09:00
Subject: Re: case when - symbols or strings?

On 13.03.2009 13:51, Gary Wright wrote:
> On Mar 13, 2009, at 8:06 AM, Marc Heiler wrote:
> 
>> Picture a small method which accepts one argument. Inside this  
>> method is
>> simply a case/when menu, nothing else. The question I now have  
>> is ... -
>> should the argument be coerced to string or symbol?
>> case argument.to_sym
>>   vs
>> case argument.to_s

OP: The question is, where does "argument" come from and what do you 
want to do with this?

> Hard to generalize but if you coerce to a string
> you'll create a string that can be garbage collected.
> If you coerce to symbol you create a new symbol that
> can't be garbage collected.
> 
> If your argument is coming from some external source
> (e.g. an HTML form) and isn't constrained in any way,
> then coercing to a symbol will introduce a small
> 'memory leak' in your program every time the case
> statement is executed.

Not necessarily: it depends on the input.

Kind regards

	robert


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