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Feature #14336

closed

Create new method String#symbol? and deprecate Symbol class

Added by dsferreira (Daniel Ferreira) almost 7 years ago. Updated almost 7 years ago.

Status:
Rejected
Assignee:
-
Target version:
-
[ruby-core:84698]

Description

From the discussions on the three previous issues related to the String vs Symbol subject (5964, 7792, 14277) there are some conclusions we can assume:

  • Current String vs Symbol is not the ideal scenario. See: Matz and Koichi comments.
  • Current philosophy is to use Symbols as identifiers and Strings when strings are needed.
  • Current situation is that Symbols are being used in many code bases as strings except for strings that really need the String methods.
  • Current situation is that we are designing APIs to handle both String and Symbol inputs forcing an overhead of API development.

I propose the deprecation of Symbol class and the introduction of String#symbol?.

foo = :foo
foo.class # => String
foo.symbol? # => true
bar = "bar"
bar.class # => String
bar.symbol? # => false

For backwards compatibility transition path I propose:

class Symbol
  def self.===(var)
    warn ("Warning message regarding deprecated class")
    if var.class == Symbol
      true
    elsif var.class == String && var.symbol?
      true
    else
      false
    end
  end
end

class String
  def is_a?(klass)
    case klass
    when String
      true
    when Symbol
      self.symbol?
    else
      false
    end
  end
end
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