From: Mark Wilson <mwilson13@...>
Date: 2003-05-26T06:26:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Range#size, Range#length


On Sunday, May 25, 2003, at 04:53 PM, Hal E. Fulton wrote:

> Apparently size and length are missing from
> the Range class nowadays.
>
> This surprises me a little. Is it because of
> Float ranges or something?
>
> I've made do with range.entries.size, which
> works fine.
>
> What's the rationale here? I'm curious.
>
> [snip]

There was a lengthy discussion on the list about this a few months ago.  
The size of float ranges was one issue. Here's a length to one thread:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF- 
8&threadm=Pine.LNX.4.33.0302121350410.3138- 
100000%40eli.fsl.noaa.gov&rnum=1&prev=/ 
groups%3Fq%3Druby%2Brange%2Blength%2Bsize%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF- 
8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg

I think the decision comes down to saying that if you are using ranges  
as a form of constructor for an array, you should think of your range  
object in those terms -- i.e., explicitly call an iterator to count the  
number of entries.

The more I think about it, range is an unusual thing (very useful,  
memory efficient, but odd among Ruby objects in that it is really a  
function).