From: Robert Feldt <feldt@...>
Date: 2003-05-29T19:23:44+09:00
Subject: Re: RCR: unpack/pack Bignum

On Thu, 29 May 2003 nobu.nokada@softhome.net wrote:

> Sorry, there's no combination of signedness and endianness,
> 'N', 'n', 'V', 'v' are always unsigned.
>
> Rather, what about size specifier extends generic integer
> conversion?
>
>   [10].pack("i(8)") => "\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\012" # big endian
>                     => "\012\0\0\0\0\0\0\0" # little endian
>
Sounds like a nice idea. however, for consistency we should also change
'A10' to 'A(10)'? Might not be adopted since it breaks old code?

> > Maybe I'm mixing different things here, maybe better to have this a a
> > method on Numeric? Numeric#to_raw_string and Numeric.from_raw_string(str)?
>
> It would be nice, but perhaps needs better name.
>
Yeah, I'm not sure what to call it really. Should be on Integer and not
Numeric though, sorry.

/Robert