From: Alan Chen <alan@...>
Date: 2002-11-09T13:15:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Lighting Rod

On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 11:47:28AM +0900, Yohanes Santoso wrote:
> "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@hypermetrics.com> writes:
> 
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Yohanes Santoso" <ysantoso@jenny-gnome.dyndns.org>
> > To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
> > Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:49 PM
> > Subject: Re: Lighting Rod
> > 
> > 
> > > > 1) Why magic variables?
> > > 
> > > Um... beneficial crufts? I think because they are already idioms.
> > > I don't even know the other name for $? (check return status).
> > 
> > They're only idioms if you're used to Perl.
> 
> or shell scripting. But you're right, a ruby user shouldn't be expected to
> have prior perl or shell scripting knowledge. Then, the only people
> benefited by magic variables are people like me who are too lazy to
> look up the proper name for $? :) (Ok... I'm looking it up now, I'm
> also curious as to what it is called).
> 
> YS.

That and the alternatives to some are a little more verbose. I'm thinking of
the Regex match variables $1, $2, etc...

Now I'm curious, how many people use this:

if( str =~ /pattern/)
  # .. do stuff with $1, $2, et al..

versus this:

if( m = /pattern/.match(str) )
  # do stuff with match obj. m


-- 
Alan Chen
Digikata LLC
http://digikata.com