From: Daniel Berger <djberge@...>
Date: 2003-05-06T22:51:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Suggestion: String#pack

Brian Candler wrote:
> 
> On Tue, May 06, 2003 at 01:55:51PM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> > I have been working on some code recently where it would be very
> > useful to do:
> >
> >     "abcdef".pack(...)
> >
> > Instead, I have to do:
> >
> >     ["abcdef"].pack(...)
> >
> > This is guaranteed to be at least a minor inefficiency because a
> > temporary anonymous array needs to be created. Is there a good reason
> > why String can't have a #pack method that Does The Right Thing?
> 
> Well, there are many other data types that you might want to pack (Fixnum
> and Bignum for example). Should they have a #pack method as well? A common
> example is packing integers into 4-byte strings:
> 
>    [1234].pack("N")  # OK
> 
>    1234.pack("N")    # ??
> 
> This becomes a bit like 'to_yaml' where ultimately everything has this
> method, including Object, which I don't really like. Maybe it would be
> better to turn it around and make module methods for packing individual
> items: e.g.
> 
>    Pack.pack(1234,"N")
> or
>    Pack.n4(1234)   # network byte order, 4 bytes
> 
> Hmm, lots of methods though.
> 
> If you don't care about the slight inefficiency and just want the cleaner
> interface, how about:
> 
>    class Object
>      def pack(arg)
>        [self].pack(arg)
>      end
>    end
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Brian.

I had a similar idea a while ago:
http://www.rubygarden.org/article.php?sid=249

Be sure to read the comments.  Anyone want to submit a new RCR?

Regards,

Dan
-- 
p
["010100101010111011001110001011100000010010000010011101101111011000101110000101101010011001001110000001000100101010101110010001101001111000000100000100101000011011000110110101101010011001001110"].pack("b*")