From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2003-01-24T13:24:59+09:00
Subject: Silly idea: map-like method produces array

OK, I was thinking today about "stacked"
assignment:

x, y, z = 0

Fine and dandy, since Fixnums are immediate.
But when there's a "real" object on the 
right, you get multiple references to the
same one. Fine if that's what you want --
if not, oops.

My silly solution:

  class Fixnum
    alias :mult :*
    def *(other)
      puts other
      if other.is_a? Numeric
        self.mult(other)
      else
        arr = []
        self.times { arr << other.dup }
        arr
      end
    end
  end

  a, b, c, d, e = 5 * []
  s1, s2, s3 = 3 * "hello"

I also thought of another method that would take
a block and thus the index could be used in 
generating values. The code is trivial. I won't
cloud the issue by showing it to you.

Comments?

Hal