From: nobu.nokada@...
Date: 2003-05-29T20:29:24+09:00
Subject: Re: RCR: unpack/pack Bignum

Hi,

At Thu, 29 May 2003 19:45:24 +0900,
Robert Feldt wrote:
> but what about
> 
>   [0x010203].pack("N(2)")
> 
> ? Should it truncate? MSB or LSB?

I guess "N(2)" is equivalent to "n", so the behavior should be
consist with the current one.  But it differs for Fixnum and
Bignum.  Which is better?

  $ ruby -e 'p [0x010203].pack("n")'
  "\002\003"

  $ ruby -e 'p [0x0102030405].pack("n")'
  -e:1:in `pack': bignum too big to convert into `int' (RangeError)
          from -e:1

> How can this be used when I have a Bignum that I don't know how large it
> will be? 'N(*)'?

I expect '(*)' would mean to convert all remained data like as
'a*' does, though you need to know the exact template to pack/
unpack fundamentally.

-- 
Nobu Nakada