From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2002-07-09T06:38:19+09:00
Subject: Re: is there a better string.each?

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 05:55:28 +0900, David Alan Black wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Austin Ziegler wrote:
>> If $/ (the argument to String#each) could be made to accept
>> regex, then the record separator could be String#each(//) if
>> necessary, allowing character-by-character parsing. This is not
>> currently possible.
> I'll put in (yet another :-) plug for String#split:
> 
> str.split(//).each ...
> 
> I think the idea of having String#each take a regex is,
> essentially, a kind of compression of this -- in other words,
> instead of #split'ing on a regex and then iterating through the
> resulting array, moving the regex intelligence into the argument
> to #each. I'm of two minds about the merits of this, but in any
> case I don't think there would be anything possible in the
> language that isn't possible now.

I agree. However, even though the code may be different, that's
basically what String#each is doing *already*, except that it's by a
string.

foo.each(bar) ...

*could* be implemented as

foo.split(/#{bar}/).each ...

very easily, with the one difference that if bar.empty?, then it's
treated as:

foo.split(/\n+/m)).each ...

I think what I'm getting at is that String#each already does the
equivalent of String#split#each -- but does so in a way that is less
useful than String#split#each (IMO).

Why not make String#each act like String#split#each?

-austin
-- Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.07.08 at 17.33.30