From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2003-12-06T01:10:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Dumb question to which I ought to know the answer by now

Hi --

On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Michael Campbell wrote:

> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 11:32:51PM +0900, nobu.nokada@softhome.net
> wrote:
> > 
> >>Once I'd proposed similar;
> >>
> >>  hash[*keys] = *values
> >>
> > 
> > 
> > That would be handy, but I don't think it's possible to define such
> > a method in current Ruby.  The parameters to []= are flattened;
> > you wouldn't be able to tell where the keys stopped and the values
> > started, unless you assumed that keys.length == values.length,
> which
> > is not always a valid assumption where I've seen the Perl idiom
> used.
> 
> 
> I think in Nobu's code, keys and values are separate arrays, so there
> is no need to know where keys stop and values begin.  Or have I
> misread?

I think what Mark means is that if you've got this:

  def []=(keys,values)

and you do what amounts to this:

  hash[1,2,3] = 4,5,6

then in effect you've got a call like this:

  hash[]=(1,2,3,4,5,6)

which doesn't fit the two-arg format, and has no unambiguous dividing
line (unless you decide that the key and value lists have to be of the
same length, which I actually think would be reasonable, though as
Mark says not identical to the Perl idiom [which I don't mind :-) ]).


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net