From: Raito Yitsushi <yitsushi@...>
Date: 2010-12-17T18:20:58+09:00
Subject: Re: do your bit for my mental health - how to find the difference between two strings?

On Dec 14, 7:15 pm, Iain Barnett <iainsp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a piece of code that doesn't work in a Sinatra app I've been writing that doesn't work.
>
> These two forms don't work:
>
> get '/tweets/:service/' do
>
>   mymethod( params[:service] )
> ..
>
> get '/tweets/:service/' do
>
>   service = params[:service]
>   mymethod( service )
> ..
>
> This works:
>
> get '/tweets/:service/' do
>
>   mymethod( 'servicename' )
>
> so does this:
>
> get '/tweets/:service/' do
>
>   service = 'servicename'
>   mymethod( service )
>
> Using the params[:service] variable then mymethod fails to do what I expect. If I hard-code the string that it's supposed to represent, it works. Every way I've examined this variable it looks exactly the same as a hard-coded version. Dump, inspect, to_s, length, class, equality, they all give the answer I expect - it's a String, and it is the same string that's in the URL that's been passed. I know that the method being called works, the only thing that doesn't is this variable. Nothing touches it before the method is called. I've tried via telnet too, no difference.
>
> To help me keep the small grain of sanity I (hope to) have remaining, could anyone suggest a good way to find out what makes two strings different?
>
> I'm currently reading stuff on using the debugger, along with some stuff on Rack Test, but if anyone has a useful insight I can use I'd be very, very grateful. Would I best running a test through the debugger, for example?
>
> Regards
> Iain

Did you try lcs-diff?