From: Kristof Bastiaensen <kristof@...>
Date: 2004-04-24T18:04:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Problem assigning an Array object to an Array-subclass object

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 11:15:16 -0400, Richard Lionheart wrote:

> notes =<<NOTES
>     I didn't like to_s' output for an Array of strings.
>     Array#to_s simply concatenated them
>     or inserted a comma separator.
>     So I wrote my own.
> 
> class MyArrayType < Array
>     def to_s
>         print "Starting MyArrayType#to_s"
>         s = ""
>         s.each { |x| s += "; " if s.length>0; s += x.to_s }
>         s
>     end
> end
> 
> myA1 = MyArrayType.new
> myA1 = %w[x1, y1]
> puts myA1.to_s  # x1,y1 .... expected x1; x2 .... MyArrayType#to_s not
> invoked
> 

Hi,
if all you want to do is change the to_s method, why not
just add it to Array?

class Array
  def my_to_s
    join("; ")
  end
end

a = %w[x1 y1]
puts a.my_to_s

#note (you could even replace the to_s method)