From: Tom Sawyer <transami@...>
Date: 2002-07-05T14:29:44+09:00
Subject: Re: is there a better string.each?

no way dude!

if it smells like a fish, and looks like a fish, and tastes like a
fish....

they fact of the matter is: a string is an ordered set of characters and
an an array is an ordered set of objects. thus the array is the general
data structure. a string is a subset of array in that it is the same
type of data structure but limited to characters (which i think is an
object type that is lacking in ruby), yet a string is also a superset of
array in that it has many additional methods.

in effect i could design a string class that inherits array:

  class String < Array

and i think that's how it a ought to be done. but there may very well be
speed considerations, or Regexp considerations, or some such thing, for
why it is not. although i find it odd since ruby is written in c.

ruby did not fix the problem, it complexified matters in this regard.

~transami


On Thu, 2002-07-04 at 20:27, Dossy wrote:
> On 2002.07.05, Tom Sawyer <transami@transami.net> wrote:
> > a = "canada"
> > a.each_byte do |i|
> >   puts i.chr
> > end
> > 
> > thought it was strange myself. personally i'd like it if String and
> > Array where a little more in harmony.
> 
> A String is a string.  An Array is an array.  Any coincidence that
> a String is an array of characters doesn't mean that a String
> converted to an Array should yield an array of characters.  You
> have String#split for that.
> 
> > in c/c++ strings are arrays, arn't they?
> 
> Thank goodness Ruby fixed this mistake.  ;-)
> 
> -- Dossy
> 
> -- 
> Dossy Shiobara                       mail: dossy@panoptic.com 
> Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/ 
>   "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
>     folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)
> 
-- 
~transami

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
 temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
	-- Benjamin Franklin