From: Tim Hunter <TimHunter@...>
Date: 2009-05-26T02:26:04+09:00
Subject: Re: hash assignment [:x] vs ['x']

Mk 27 wrote:
> Being totally new to ruby, I just noticed that using
> 
> bob['phone']
> 
> which coming from perl is a style I'm used to, results in a separate key
> than
> 
> bob[:phone]
> 
> That seems slightly weird, I had assumed the :form is just a shorthand
> like %w(  ).  So -- is there anything more that I need to understand
> about this distinction?

:x is a Symbol object. 'x' is a String. You can make a symbol from a 
string with the intern method, and a string from a symbol with the to_s 
method.

A symbol is a named number that Ruby guarantees will have the same value 
throughout your program. You pick the name, Ruby picks the number.


-- 
RMagick: http://rmagick.rubyforge.org/