A few thoughts for ruby

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

2) add some useful lists of exceptions, ex: IO.SELECT_EXCEPTIONS,
IO.READ_EXCEPTIONS, so that you can rescue the wide gamut of them
appropriately, should you desire to.

3) provide an easier way to know which platform you're on than
RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin32|dgjpp|mingw/

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

6) add Dir.directory?
-> File.directory?

Feedback?
Thanks!
-=r

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Roger Pack wrote:

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

It's not really symmetrical. Array has an #include? method because it is a collection. Object has #in? because it is--what? A potential member of a collection?

This would conflict with lots of potential other uses of #in? that have nothing to do with collections:

Clutch#in?

Doctor#in?

Fix#in?

(to start just with the 0-ary ones).

2) add some useful lists of exceptions, ex: IO.SELECT_EXCEPTIONS,
IO.READ_EXCEPTIONS, so that you can rescue the wide gamut of them
appropriately, should you desire to.

I've wanted that, and ended up with:

   ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS = [Errno::ECONNRESET, Errno::ECONNABORTED,
     Errno::ECONNREFUSED, Errno::EPIPE, IOError, Errno::ETIMEDOUT]

   ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS << Errno::EPROTO if defined?(Errno::EPROTO)
   ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS << Errno::ENETUNREACH if defined?(Errno::ENETUNREACH)

Maybe a better way would be to include a module, AnyNetworkError, in each of these. Then you could

  rescue AnyNetworkError

Like this:

module E; end

class E1 < StandardError; include E; end
class E2 < StandardError; include E; end

begin
   raise E1, "foo"
rescue E => ex
   p ex
end

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

Would not like having to escape { in strings...

···

--
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

-0

I don't see the benefit but I'm also not strongly against. I do see Joel's point about the reversion. Basically it is strange that every object should be able to answer a question that only the collection can answer. Plus, you can easily add it yourself if you need it.

2) add some useful lists of exceptions, ex: IO.SELECT_EXCEPTIONS,
IO.READ_EXCEPTIONS, so that you can rescue the wide gamut of them
appropriately, should you desire to.

A good idea. But I do not know how feasible this is. Not all OS have the same error reporting mechanisms and the mapping from OS errors to exception types would have to be maintained of all platforms.

3) provide an easier way to know which platform you're on than
RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin32|dgjpp|mingw/

-1

This would make a Ruby specific unification of operating systems necessary. This means that not only maintainers of automake need to keep track of operating systems but also maintainers of Ruby. Other difficulties are: how much level of detail do you provide? For one application it may be enough to know it's running on Linux, the other one needs to know the kernel version and a third one does not bother about versions but must know the distro. I see too much effort for too little benefit.

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

-1

Definitively a don't as the overhead of typing # isn't too big (plus, it is more easily spotted) and the potential for damage caused by this is large.

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

0

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason. For example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more obvious that float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

6) add Dir.directory?
-> File.directory?

0

Btw, there is also this nice idiom for those tests

if test ?d, "some dir"

Kind regards

  robert

···

On 11.04.2009 06:52, Roger Pack wrote:

Hi,

At Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:52:49 +0900,
Roger Pack wrote in [ruby-talk:333607]:

6) add Dir.directory?
-> File.directory?

Dir.exist? exists in 1.9.

···

--
Nobu Nakada

Roger Pack wrote:

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

2) add some useful lists of exceptions, ex: IO.SELECT_EXCEPTIONS,
IO.READ_EXCEPTIONS, so that you can rescue the wide gamut of them
appropriately, should you desire to.

3) provide an easier way to know which platform you're on than
RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin32|dgjpp|mingw/

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

6) add Dir.directory?
-> File.directory?

Feedback?
Thanks!
-=r

Object#in? can be very useful in keeping code legible; it more likely to
be problematic in some circumstances than others. I'm using it in the
game I'm writing right now and it's working just fine, but I don't
really think it should be part of Ruby Core.

That said, it's very very easy to add yourself if you need it:

class Object
  def in?(object)
    if object.respond_to?(:include?) then
      object.include? self
    else
      false
    end
  end #def in?
end #class Object

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

and here's a few more, for any feedbacks:

1) have load not "necessarily" require the .rb suffix, (i.e. make it
behave more like require). Rationale--both load and require are
ultimately used to import ruby scripts, Therefore having one be suffix
insensitive and the other not is surprising.

2) having "string" + something default to
"string" + something.to_s

History: when I mentioned this proposal once, Matz said something like
"it used to work that way, but it was changed because it hid bugs"
I think the reason that it hides bugs is because if the "something" is
nil, the concatenation silently concatenated with nothing--you would
have hoped it would have raised an exception, but instead you just have
strings with mysteriously shorter lengths.

(i.e. nil should *not* default to .to_s--this hides bugs)

therefore I would propose that string#+ default to
string + something.to_s
unless that something is nil -- then raise an exception.
I just really miss this from java, and dislike having to type in .to_s
quite frequently (and I do know you can leverage .to_str for this same
effect, I just wish it were default--I'm quite lazy and want to share
this "nicety" from java).

Thoughts?
Thanks!
-=r

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

Hi --

Roger Pack wrote:

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

Could you possibly start a different thread for each topic? Bunching them together makes it very labor-intensive to try to follow the thread if one is interested in a specific point, and impossible to tell who has responded to what without going through six topics' worth of posts.

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

It's not extra, though. One way or another you have to flag the difference between interpolation and literal {. Having to escape literal { because they have special meaning seems to me to be the long way 'round.

David

···

--
David A. Black / Ruby Power and Light, LLC
Ruby/Rails consulting & training: http://www.rubypal.com
Now out in PDF: The Well-Grounded Rubyist (http://manning.com/black2\)
"Ruby 1.9: What You Need To Know" Envycasts with David A. Black
http://www.envycasts.com

Thanks for the reply Joel.

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

It's not really symmetrical. Array has an #include? method because it is
a collection. Object has #in? because it is--what? A potential member of
a collection?

Yeah. I'm not saying it's symmetric as much as useful and
intuitive--some of the big reasons I like Ruby :slight_smile:
Would #within? be better?

I've wanted that, and ended up with:

   ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS = [Errno::ECONNRESET, Errno::ECONNABORTED,
     Errno::ECONNREFUSED, Errno::EPIPE, IOError, Errno::ETIMEDOUT]

   ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS << Errno::EPROTO if defined?(Errno::EPROTO)
   ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS << Errno::ENETUNREACH if defined?(Errno::ENETUNREACH)

Looks like it would indeed be useful--especially for cross platform
where you 'wish you didnt have to know them all for every platform'
(there really are a lot of them -- see
http://betterlogic.com/roger/?p=1223 as an example).

Maybe a better way would be to include a module, AnyNetworkError, in
each of these. Then you could...

Yeah, or have them all descend from a single ancestor. I would say just
descend from SocketError except that SocketError is actually raised as
an exception itself, every so often, so it has its own meaning
currently...though I guess that doesn't stop it from being an ancestor.

module E; end

...

begin
   raise E1, "foo"
rescue E => ex
   p ex
end

That's pretty elegant. With an array you can [non intuitively] also get
by:

begin
   raise SocketError "foo"
rescue *ALL_NETWORK_ERRORS => ex
   p ex
end

(I'm sure you knew that).

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

Would not like having to escape { in strings...

Ok. This next isn't meant as an attacking question but...do you use { in
normal strings often? Granted probably more than #, but...?

Thanks!
-=r

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

-0

I don't see the benefit but I'm also not strongly against. I do see
Joel's point about the reversion. Basically it is strange that every
object should be able to answer a question that only the collection can
answer. Plus, you can easily add it yourself if you need it.

I kind of agree with Joel on this one, too.

A few other observations:

re: in?
Currently with #select you've got one in Kernel [which is IO.select] but
Arrays seem to have their own #select. So it is "conceivably possible"
to have a "default #in?" and have it overridden by Clutch#in? or
House#in? if desired.

Another option would be included? -- might be more ruby-y :slight_smile:

2) add some useful lists of exceptions, ex: IO.SELECT_EXCEPTIONS,
IO.READ_EXCEPTIONS, so that you can rescue the wide gamut of them
appropriately, should you desire to.

A good idea. But I do not know how feasible this is. Not all OS have
the same error reporting mechanisms and the mapping from OS errors to
exception types would have to be maintained of all platforms.

True, mapping exceptions directly from OS to OS would be problematic.
And knowing which ones are on each OS is also annoying.
I am proposing more of a (platform dependent) container of all possible
exceptions, regardless of what they may mean. Or have them all include
a common ancestor--same result.

3) provide an easier way to know which platform you're on than
RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin32|dgjpp|mingw/

-1

This would make a Ruby specific unification of operating systems
necessary. This means that not only maintainers of automake need to
keep track of operating systems but also maintainers of Ruby. Other
difficulties are: how much level of detail do you provide? For one
application it may be enough to know it's running on Linux, the other
one needs to know the kernel version and a third one does not bother
about versions but must know the distro. I see too much effort for too
little benefit.

True maintaining this is annoying, but I'd also propose that it's
useful. Currently in 1.9 we have:

RUBY_VERSION

=> "1.9.2"

RUBY_PLATFORM

=> "x86_64-linux"

RUBY_ENGINE

=> "ruby"

Typically "enough" OS information is given in RUBY_PLATFORM to determine
the platform--it's just "hard" to use that for such. My example being
that knowing if you're on windows is something like RUBY_PLATFORM =~
/dgjpp|mingw|mswin/
which seems overly complex for me. And very hard to get right the first
time (ex: RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /win/ doesn't work--that includes darwin).

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

-1

Definitively a don't as the overhead of typing # isn't too big (plus, it
is more easily spotted) and the potential for damage caused by this is
large.

True it's not too hard to type--I just think its absence would be less
typing, and that the # is "too" easily spotted, but again, that's just
my take on it. Actually you may have a reasonable point (easy to spot
is good).

The kicker is also that # is ingrained so much in existing ruby
code...it would be a pretty dramatic change.

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

0

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason.
For example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more
obvious that float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

Yeah I wonder that myself. I was just hoping to make it easier to use
BigDecimal, since Floats are so imprecise to use for decimal numbers :slight_smile:

if test ?d, "some dir"

Could you explain that again? Not sure I do understand the idiom.
Looks like bash?
Much thanks.
-=r

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

Before reading your email I was writing my own Object#in? and came up
with a very similar method without testing :include? support:

class Object
  def in?(collection)
    collection.include? self
  end
end

This way you can detect you're calling Object#in? with an "incorrect"
argument. For example,

3.include? [1,2,3] => true
3.include? 5 => NoMethodError: undefined method `include?' for
5:Fixnum

My $0.02.

Best regards,
Edgardo

···

On Apr 11, 2:27 pm, Adam Gardner <adam.oddfel...@gmail.com> wrote:

Roger Pack wrote:
> Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
> to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

> 1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

Object#in? can be very useful in keeping code legible; it more likely to
be problematic in some circumstances than others. I'm using it in the
game I'm writing right now and it's working just fine, but I don't
really think it should be part of Ruby Core.

That said, it's very very easy to add yourself if you need it:

class Object
def in?(object)
if object.respond_to?(:include?) then
object.include? self
else
false
end
end #def in?
end #class Object

Why aren't they? What do you mean by this out of interest?

Blog: http://random8.zenunit.com/
Learn rails: http://sensei.zenunit.com/

···

On 11/04/2009, at 6:45 PM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason. For example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more obvious that float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

some_var = '/tmp'

print 'Is a directory.' if Dir.directory? some_var

vs

print 'Is a directory.' if File.directory? some_var

The difference is small, and it is not really important but from a
logical point of view, since we don't treat both as Inodes anyway in
ruby, using Dir.directory? seems syntactically more logical than using
File.directory?.

But it is not anything which really bothers me.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Roger Pack wrote:

2) having "string" + something default to
"string" + something.to_s

What about getting in the habit of

   "#{s}#{t}"

instead of

   s + t

to take care of the #to_s for you? Or course, that doesn't help with

   s += t

···

--
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

Could you possibly start a different thread for each topic? Bunching
them together makes it very labor-intensive to try to follow the thread
if one is interested in a specific point, and impossible to tell who has
responded to what without going through six topics' worth of posts.

Great idea.
-=r

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

Hi,

At Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:30:54 +0900,
Roger Pack wrote in [ruby-talk:333612]:

Ok. This next isn't meant as an attacking question but...do you use { in
normal strings often? Granted probably more than #, but...?

gettext, and printf in 1.9.

  printf "%{foo}\n", foo:1 #=> 1

···

--
Nobu Nakada

Roger Pack

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

Joel VanderWerf

It's not really symmetrical. Array has an #include? method because it is
a collection. Object has #in? because it is--what? A potential member of
a collection?

Robert Klemme

I don't see the benefit but I'm also not strongly against. I do see
Joel's point about the reversion. Basically it is strange that every
object should be able to answer a question that only the collection can
answer. Plus, you can easily add it yourself if you need it.

Sometimes the best (or better) usage depends on the context.
For example, on some occasions we use: Integer === object
and on other occasions we use: object.kind_of?( Integer )
So I'm not against this on principle, and for me the question is
what is the balance between not adding things unless we need to
and does this make things easier in a significant number of cases.
I don't know the answer!

Roger Pack
4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

I'm not in favour, for Robert Klemme's reasons.

Roger Pack

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

Robert Klemme

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason.
For example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more
obvious that float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

Roger Pack

Yeah I wonder that myself. I was just hoping to make it easier to use
BigDecimal, since Floats are so imprecise to use for decimal numbers :slight_smile:

Then probably best to start with BigDecimal and keep using it?
We can always use BD = BigDecimal ; BD.new( "123.456" )
and I seem to recall that there's a way to assign a method to a variable
which could reduce this to BD( "123.456" ). I think it's important
to normally use strings to get BigDecimal values to avoid precision errors.

Robert Klemme makes a good point: Float has less precision than BigDecimal
and in general I think that you should be *very* wary about converting
from lower precision to higher precision - at least not without being
fully aware of what you are doing - because later on you may be mislead
into thinking that your calculation is more accurate than it actually is.
(See "Here's one I made earlier" below.)

You can't gain precision by such a conversion, which is why my start
position is not to do it. That said, converting Float to BigDecimal
may sometimes be useful when it can prevent further loss of precision.
For example, ( float_a - float_b ) can reduce the accuracy drastically,
and conversion to BigDecimal might be useful there.
( Caveat: Numerical Analysis - study of ... - can be extremely tricky,
   and I only know enough about it to know that:
   1. I don't understand it sufficiently to make definitive statements.
   2. In my own stuff I probably ignore it more than I should. )

So I am against easy conversion by using something like BigDecimal( float ).
I think any standard conversion method from Float to BigDecimal
should be relatively ugly and messy. I did tbink of suggesting a rather long
method name, maybe BigDecimal.do_you_really_want_to_convert_this_float(fnum)
but someone can always alias that to a much shorter name.

If you require "bigdecimal/util" this does, amongst other things:
# BigDecimal utility library. ... The following methods are provided
# to convert other types to BigDecimals: ...
class Float < Numeric
  def to_d
    BigDecimal(self.to_s)
  end
end

So you can require that library, or just use BigDecimal( float.to_s ),
I think BigDecimal( float.to_s ) satisfies my general thought here
that whatever the conversion method used is, it shouldn't be so simple
that you can use it without being in some way being reminded
that what you are doing might not be a good idea.
So making it sort of ugly fits in with that.
(In fact, I'm not sure that having a Float#to_d method is a good idea.)

Doing a quick bit of testing suggested that using "%f" % float
might be better than using float.to_s because in some cases
the former preserves information that is actually in the float
which the latter uses. In fact, I was going to suggest you propose
to use "%f" % self in Float#to_d instead of self.to_s.
But after some more thought and a bit of testing, I found that
for me in IRB "%f" % float only gives results to 6 decimal places
but float.to_s seems to give results to 14 or 15 significant figures
so overall using float.to_s for the conversion seems better.

If we want a BigDecimal method (and in view of BigDecimal( float.to_s )
I don't think we do - but BigDecimal( float.to_s ) should perhaps
be mentioned prominently in BigDecimal documentation)
how about something like (not tested):
  def BigDecimal.from_f( f )
    if f.kind_of?( Float ) then BigDecimal( f.to_s )
    else raise "BigDecimal.from_f: argument must be a Float"
    end
  end

An argument for this is that by providing it you give a reasonably
simple standard way to do it which might reduce potentially
problematic "build your own" solutions.
(I'm not against "build your own" in principle: at the least
it can be a useful way to find out how things work,
and it may result in an improvement, and as long as it's
your own time and your own decision to do it, why not?
But where there are hidden pitfalls, a reliable and
reasonably easy to use solution is a good idea.)

***** For those who want to know a bit more *****

*** Here's one I made earlier. ***

(Really! Two days ago, in fact. For those not in the UK the reference
is to a long-running BBC television programme for children:
   Blue Peter - Wikipedia
   ... The show is also famous for its "makes", which are demonstrations
   of how to construct a useful object or prepare food. These have given rise
   to the oft-used phrase "Here's one I made earlier", as presenters bring out
   a perfect and completed version of the object they are making. ...
Well, one thing we try to do in Ruby is make (almost) perfect objects! )

I'm looking (for my own purposes) at the various Numeric classes,
and I think it's useful to consider them in terms of precision
potentially being lost on conversion and how we should cope with that.

(I'm using Microsoft Windows Vista (*1): if the behaviour shown doesn't work,
just increase n until it does! Admittedly this uses Integer not BigDecimal,
but it shows the potential problems if precision is lost.)

irb

n = 53
i = 2 ** n #=> 9007199254740992
ii = i + 1 #=> 9007199254740993
f = Float( i ) #=> 9.00719925474099e+015
ff = Float( ii ) #=> 9.00719925474099e+015
iii = Integer( ff ) #=> 9007199254740992
i == ii #=> false
i == f #=> true
ii == f #=> true
f == ff #=> true
i <=> ii #=> -1
i <=> f #=> 0
ii <=> f #=> 0

Colin Bartlett

(*1) Question: Why do you like Linux and BSD Unix so much?
               You've never used either of them.
     Answer: No, but I have used Microsoft Windows.
with apologies to Karl Kraus Karl Kraus - Wikipedia

Roger Pack wrote:

4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

Would not like having to escape { in strings...

Ok. This next isn't meant as an attacking question but...do you use { in normal strings often? Granted probably more than #, but...?

Yes, quite extensively when generating C code. Would hate to have to use \{...} instead of {...} for C blocks. Also, but less often, inside of

   instance_eval "...",

or

   eval "...", etc.

···

--
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

-0

I don't see the benefit but I'm also not strongly against. I do see
Joel's point about the reversion. Basically it is strange that every
object should be able to answer a question that only the collection can
answer. Plus, you can easily add it yourself if you need it.

I kind of agree with Joel on this one, too.

A few other observations:

re: in?
Currently with #select you've got one in Kernel [which is IO.select] but Arrays seem to have their own #select. So it is "conceivably possible" to have a "default #in?" and have it overridden by Clutch#in? or House#in? if desired.

That's not exactly an override situation because the "global" select is used without an instance or with a class instance (IO) while Enumerable#select is always used with an instance.

Another option would be included? -- might be more ruby-y :slight_smile:

2) add some useful lists of exceptions, ex: IO.SELECT_EXCEPTIONS,
IO.READ_EXCEPTIONS, so that you can rescue the wide gamut of them
appropriately, should you desire to.

A good idea. But I do not know how feasible this is. Not all OS have
the same error reporting mechanisms and the mapping from OS errors to
exception types would have to be maintained of all platforms.

True, mapping exceptions directly from OS to OS would be problematic. And knowing which ones are on each OS is also annoying.
I am proposing more of a (platform dependent) container of all possible exceptions, regardless of what they may mean. Or have them all include a common ancestor--same result.

There is SystemCallError already:

ObjectSpace.each_object(Class) do |cl|
   p cl if cl.ancestors.include? SystemCallError
end

3) provide an easier way to know which platform you're on than
RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin32|dgjpp|mingw/

-1

This would make a Ruby specific unification of operating systems
necessary. This means that not only maintainers of automake need to
keep track of operating systems but also maintainers of Ruby. Other
difficulties are: how much level of detail do you provide? For one
application it may be enough to know it's running on Linux, the other
one needs to know the kernel version and a third one does not bother
about versions but must know the distro. I see too much effort for too
little benefit.

True maintaining this is annoying, but I'd also propose that it's useful. Currently in 1.9 we have:

RUBY_VERSION

=> "1.9.2"

RUBY_PLATFORM

=> "x86_64-linux"

RUBY_ENGINE

=> "ruby"

Typically "enough" OS information is given in RUBY_PLATFORM to determine the platform--it's just "hard" to use that for such. My example being that knowing if you're on windows is something like RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /dgjpp|mingw|mswin/
which seems overly complex for me. And very hard to get right the first time (ex: RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /win/ doesn't work--that includes darwin).

And how do you want to resolve the issues I have raised in my posting? The question really is "what is a platform"? When using cygwin, are you "on Windows" or not? etc.

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

0

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason.
For example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more
obvious that float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

Yeah I wonder that myself. I was just hoping to make it easier to use BigDecimal, since Floats are so imprecise to use for decimal numbers :slight_smile:

Which is exactly the reason why conversion to a BigDecimal should not be too easy. String with decimal encoded number as input format for a BigDecimal is really the proper type as you can see from the name "BigDecimal". :slight_smile:

if test ?d, "some dir"

Could you explain that again? Not sure I do understand the idiom. Looks like bash?

[robert@ora01 ~]$ ruby19 -e 'puts "yeah!" if test ?d, "."'
yeah!
[robert@ora01 ~]$

Happy Easter!

  robert

···

On 11.04.2009 20:43, Roger Pack wrote:

Please do not top post.

Why aren't they? What do you mean by this out of interest?

09:41:50 ~$ ruby19 x.rb
Float 0.00000000010000000827
BigDecimal 0.00000000010000000000
Float 0.00000000000000000827
BigDecimal 0.00000000000000000000
false
true
09:41:52 ~$ cat x.rb

require 'bigdecimal'

f = (1.0 + 1.0e-10) - 1.0
bd = (BigDecimal.new("1.0") + BigDecimal.new("1.0e-10")) - BigDecimal.new("1.0")

printf "%-10s %30.20f\n", f.class, f
printf "%-10s %30.20f\n", bd.class, bd

f -= 1.0e-10
bd -= BigDecimal.new "1.0e-10"

printf "%-10s %30.20f\n", f.class, f
printf "%-10s %30.20f\n", bd.class, bd

puts f == 0.0, bd == 0.0
09:41:57 ~$

···

2009/4/14 Julian Leviston <julian@coretech.net.au>:

On 11/04/2009, at 6:45 PM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason. For
example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more obvious that
float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

Cheers

robert

--
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end

True, so I'd agree that encouraging Float -> BigDecimal conversions
isn't a great idea. OTOH, what I would like to see is BigDecimal (and
maybe even Rational) literal syntax in Ruby in the future, e.g.

1.23 # Float
1.23d # BigDecimal
a =1 # Fixnum
a/2 # => 0
b = 1r # Rational
b/2 # == Rational("1/2")

Essentially, provide a way to make working with exact numbers
convenient without necessarily adopting all the behavioral changes of
the mathn library (which you may want to avoid in order not to break
older code.)

···

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Colin Bartlett <colinb2r@googlemail.com> wrote:

Roger Pack

Thought I'd pass these thoughts by the readers here before sending them
to core. They're my current wish list :slight_smile:

1) add an Object#in? method to complement the existing Array#include?

Joel VanderWerf

It's not really symmetrical. Array has an #include? method because it is
a collection. Object has #in? because it is--what? A potential member of
a collection?

Robert Klemme

I don't see the benefit but I'm also not strongly against. I do see
Joel's point about the reversion. Basically it is strange that every
object should be able to answer a question that only the collection can
answer. Plus, you can easily add it yourself if you need it.

Sometimes the best (or better) usage depends on the context.
For example, on some occasions we use: Integer === object
and on other occasions we use: object.kind_of?( Integer )
So I'm not against this on principle, and for me the question is
what is the balance between not adding things unless we need to
and does this make things easier in a significant number of cases.
I don't know the answer!

Roger Pack
4) (this one's controversial) remove the extra # for code in strings
(i.e. "string#{code}") -> "string{code}" less typing.

I'm not in favour, for Robert Klemme's reasons.

Roger Pack

5) add a BigDecimal(float) method.
-> BigDecimal.new("%f" % float)

Robert Klemme

Seems reasonable at first sight but the absence might have a reason.
For example, by making the conversion to String explicit it is more
obvious that float and BigDecimal are not really compatible.

Roger Pack

Yeah I wonder that myself. I was just hoping to make it easier to use
BigDecimal, since Floats are so imprecise to use for decimal numbers :slight_smile:

Then probably best to start with BigDecimal and keep using it?
We can always use BD = BigDecimal ; BD.new( "123.456" )
and I seem to recall that there's a way to assign a method to a variable
which could reduce this to BD( "123.456" ). I think it's important
to normally use strings to get BigDecimal values to avoid precision errors.