From: mgarriss <mgarriss@...>
Date: 2003-08-27T02:09:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Array#uniq!

Kurt M. Dresner wrote:

>The exclamation point usually means that the array is modified in place,
>and thus its return value should not be the uniquified array, but rather
>something that can tell you if the array elements were unique, and if
>not, what elements were responsible.
>
>That way, you can say something like:
>
>a = some stuff
>
>if b = a.uniq!
>   puts "array was unique."
>else
>   puts "array was not unique: multiple instances of " + b.join(', ')
>end
>
>That is a whole lot better than having to store a copy of the old array
>and then do set subtraction with the uniquified array.
>
>-Kurt
>

I'll just use '(a = a.uniq).some_method' to keep it in place.  In my 
case the array is tiny and this is done very rarely so no performance hit.