From: Josef 'Jupp' SCHUGT <jupp@...>
Date: 2003-11-18T06:46:49+09:00
Subject: Re: to_i

Hi!

* Artur Merke; 2003-11-17, 14:20 UTC:
> IMO, it has to do with the principle of least surprise, and it is a
> BIG surprise to get
> "hello".to_i -> 0

Let me quote Kernighan & Richie, Programming in C (naive
implementation of atoi):

int atoi(char s[])
{
    int i, n;

    n = 0;
    for (i = 0; s[i] >= '0' && s[i] <= '9'; ++i)
        n = 10 * n + (s[i] - '0');
    return n;
}

Assuming this sample implementation it is not at all surprising that
atoi returns 0 if the argument string does not start with a 'digit'.
Given Ruby's C heritage it is no surprise that to_i behaves the same
as atoi.

Josef 'Jupp' Schugt
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