From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2002-11-20T05:30:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Symbol usage help

In article <Pine.LNX.4.33.0211191902010.29118-100000@eli.fsl.noaa.gov>,
ahoward  <ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
>
>rubyists-
>
>given
>
>  a = 42
>  b = 'forty-two'
>
>is it possible to do something like :
>
>  %w( a b ).each do |s|
>    puts "#{s} = #{s.intern.value}"
>  end
>
>to output
>
>  a = 42
>  b = forty-two
>
>obviously, the Symbol#value method does not exist, but this should be clear
>enough...

How about?:

irb(main):013:0> %w( a b ).each do |s|
irb(main):014:1*   puts "#{s} = #{eval s}"
irb(main):015:1> end
a = 42
b = forty-two

But actually, you're list doesn't contain symbols but strings which stand 
for the names of your two variables a, and b.  So 's' above isn't a Symbol 
but a String.

probably what you really want is:

[:a,:b].each do |s|
  puts #{s} = #{eval s.id2name}
end


Phil