From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2004-03-09T15:10:41+09:00
Subject: Re: bizare yaml values

Ara.T.Howard wrote:
> i have tk gui which owns a config object - derived from hash.  i have an
> options menu configured with a callback that updates this has and another menu
> that allows one to view this hash as a 'to_yaml' string.  after updating it
> the values seem correct (inspect) and my code works properly, however the
> to_yaml output shows bizarre values where it has been updated such as
> 
>   *id001
>   &id001
> 
> the code in question is much to long to post, but i'm wondering what the
> meaning of such values might mean and what type of situation might create
> them.  i'm guessing it may have something to do with proc bindings and the
> present value of a hash... but i'm pretty much at a loss at where to start
> looking even...

No worries. It's just references:

irb(main):008:0> x = []
=> []
irb(main):009:0> y = x
=> []
irb(main):010:0> z = [x,y]
=> [[], []]
irb(main):011:0> puts z.to_yaml
---
- &id001 []
- *id001
=> nil

Just for fun...

irb(main):012:0> x = []
=> []
irb(main):013:0> x << x
=> [[...]]
irb(main):014:0> puts x.to_yaml
--- &id001
- *id001
=> nil