From: TAKAHASHI Masayoshi <maki@...>
Date: 2003-09-06T10:15:54+09:00
Subject: ruby-dev summary 21254-21294

Hello,

This is a summary of ruby-dev mailing list last week.


  [ruby-dev:21277] multiple assignment

Koji Arai found a difference of multiple assignment
between 1.6 and 1.8.

ex:

  *a = *[]; p a
  def f;  yield; end; f {|*a| p a}
  def r; return; end; *a = r(); p a
  => ruby 1.6.8 (2003-08-03) [i586-linux]
     []
     [nil]
     [nil]
  => ruby 1.8.0 (2003-08-28) [i586-linux]
     []
     []
     [nil]

           *a = *[1,2]; p a
  def f;  yield *[1,2]; end; f {|*a| p a}
  def r; return *[1,2]; end; *a = r(); p a
  => -:2: warning: `*' interpreted as argument prefix
     ruby 1.6.8 (2003-08-03) [i586-linux]
     [1, 2]
     [1, 2]
     [1, 2]
  => -:2: warning: `*' interpreted as argument prefix
     ruby 1.8.0 (2003-08-28) [i586-linux]
     [1, 2]
     [1, 2]
     [[1, 2]]

Matz replied that it's not a bug of 1.8, but it shows
peculiar property of return (and break).

LHS of multiple assignment and block parameters can find
whether RHS is (pseudo-)multivalue or not.
But if RHS is a method, LHS cannot find that.
When you want to use multiple assignment with return value
of a method, you should put '*' before the method,
not after return.


[ruby-dev:21292] parsedate.rb and time.rb

Tadayoshi Funaba, the maintainer of parsedate.rb, pointed out
parsedate.rb doesn't support 'year/month' format but time.rb does.
He thought parsedate.rb should not support that format.
Tanaka Akira, the maintainer of time.rb, agreed and fixed
time.rb.

Rationale:

 * date formats that parsedate supports should have
   a year, a month and a day.
 * if something is omit, it's a year. parsedate.rb
   supports "Aug 30", "30 Aug", MM/DD and MMDD.
 * slash-splitted format is parsed as 'month/mday/year' or
   'month/mday' (american format).
 * 'foo/bar' should be 'month/mday', not 'year/month'

Funaba writes more details of parsedate:
 http://www.funaba.org/date2/parsedate.html  (in Japanese)


Regards,

TAKAHASHI 'Maki' Masayoshi     E-mail: maki@rubycolor.org