From: "Mauricio Fernández" <batsman.geo@...>
Date: 2003-04-12T05:17:33+09:00
Subject: Re: splat question

On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 02:41:14AM +0900, Chris Pine wrote:
> (This question assumes that the unary `*' (used in arrays and such) is
> called "splat".  If not, please translate this into something which makes
> sense.)
> 
> I was wondering if there's a reason we couldn't splat an array into itself.
> There's no way currently to do it (no syntax for it), but would it be
> impossible to do?  I was thinking something like this would produce an
> infinite array of ones:
> 
>   a = [1, *a]  #  Doesn't work because `a' isn't defined.
> 
> or this:
> 
>   a = [1]
>   a << *a  #  Parse error.
> 
> or this:
> 
>   a = [1]
>   a[1] = *a
>   a  #  -->  [1, 1]  (Of course.)
> 
> 
> Would this be impossible because when a splat is encountered, the objects
> are injected into the other array at that moment?  (It seems like Ruby could
> just wait on that.)
  ==========
> 
> It's just one of those things from functional programming that I don't see
> how to do in Ruby.

This sounds like lazy evaluation, the kind of stuff you can find around
implemented with continuations. 

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