From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2004-05-12T01:38:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposal: Object#send(nil) -> self


"Gavin Sinclair" <gsinclair@soyabean.com.au> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1431045619661.20040512020216@soyabean.com.au...
> A quick one.  I see some sense in Object#send accepting 'nil' as the
> message.  You send no message, you get the plain object.  Does anyone
> agree?
>
> #send is clearly useful when you want to vary the message sent to an
> object based on some condition.  Sometimes the default condition is to
> send no message, but that can't be coded as elegantly.
>
> For example:
>
>   date_colour_msg =
>     case Date.today - date
>     when 0 then :red
>     when 1 then :yellow
>     when 2..5 then :green
>     else
>       nil   # Default: whatever the normal colour is.
>     end
>

# how about
date_str = date.to_s.send(date_colour_msg) if date_colour_msg

OTOH you can do

  date_str = case Date.today - date
    when 0 then date.to_s.red
    when 1 then date.to_s.yellow
    when 2..5 then date.to_s.green
    else
      default_color  # Default: whatever the normal colour is.
    end

The more OO way would be to use a Hash:

COLORS = {
  0 => :red
  ...
}
COLORS.default= default_color

date_str = COLORS[Date.today - date]

> That example's not too contrived, is it?

I found a bit irritating that you send :red, :yellow etc. to a String.

Regards

    robert