From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-10-22T22:56:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby/Tk newbie question

Hi Andrew,

As also already responded by other people, Ruby by default does not call
the "to_s" method for a string in its "+" method.  In this regard, Ruby
wants you to be explicit about what you are doing.  But of course, nothing
prevents you to redifine the string "+" method:

    a = 'aString'
    b = 1
    #puts a + b    # -> "failed to convert Fixnum into String"

    class String
      alias oldPlus +
      def +(anObj)
        oldPlus(anObj.to_s)
      end
    end

    puts a + b    # -> "aString1"

Or, as already been pointed out, you can just put the variables in #{} in
a double-quoted string, in which case the objects' to_s methods are
automatically called for you.  (Well... Ruby is really not "there is only
one way to do it", but perhaps as some people call it, "there is always
the best way to do it" :) )

Regards,

Bill
===========================================================================
andrew delboy <andrew@cyber.com.au> wrote:
> Is there a way to concatonate strings without having to use the x.to_s method?

> In other words, because "+" is a string to start the expression, wouldnt the
> plus operator actually be the '+' method within the string object?  And thus
> wouldnt the string want to use 'string values' of the objects they are concatonating?

> Can we use the shortcut of 

> 	geom = "+" + x + "+" + y
> ??

> Thanks
> --Andrew