From: Sean Chittenden <sean@...>
Date: 2002-04-24T16:14:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Numberic#prev

> |> I'm not sure how much useful it is.  And I'm (little bit) afraid
> |> of it might cause request for String#prev, which is way difficult
> |> to define.
> |
> |It's only as useful as Integer#succ, which, proves to be useful
> |when dealing with simple stacks and counters used outside of the
> |range class.
> 
> Hmm, ascending order vs descending order...
> 
> |I agree with the preceding post:
> |
> |aString.succ.prev  = aString.prev.succ = aString
> 
> Unfortunately String#succ is not reversible operation since it's not
> one-to-one relation.

I never understood why the last character in the string wasn't
converted to an int, then ++.  If the final char's value was greater
than 255, then roll over the remainder in strlen(cur_pos - 1)....
greater than 255... that begs: why isn't there a class called
"Character" that handles unicode.  Right now String#succ seems
horribly English centric.  If it's a Spanish locale, 'o'.succ doesn't
return "o'" (can't produce the o w/ the accent on top at the moment,
it's HTML escape code is &oacute; though ::grin::).

How's this: apply patch, worry about nagging users later.  There might
not be any need for String#prev...

-sc

-- 
Sean Chittenden