From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2002-02-13T03:27:58+09:00
Subject: Re: [newbie] make first letter lowercase

Tobias Reif <tobiasreif@pinkjuice.com> writes:

> >   str.upcase!(2,4)
> >   str.tr!('a', 'b', 5, 6)
> 
> is easier, simpler, and shorter to write than this
>
> >    str.expose!(1,2).upcase
> >    str.expose!(5,6).tr('a', 'b')

I guess we'll have to disagree on all but the 'shorter' part, and in
programming, as in so many things, shorter isn't _always_ better.

In addition, how would you write methods such as String#squeeze! using
the first notation? How would you differentiate a String being used to
define an index range from a string being squeezed (remembering that
str["a"] is a valid way to index a string)? And how would you pass an
exposed fragment of a string to another method for processing?

   def mangle(str)
     str.tr!("a-m", "b-n")
   end

   mangle(str.expose!(3,5))

(In looking at my original examples, I suspect that update and tr
should have '!'s on them)




Cheers


Dave