Misc #21025: What's the default encoding of `String.new`?

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: -

[deivid (David Rodríguez)]

In the documentation (https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/3.4/encodings_rdoc.html#label-String+Encoding) I see a good explanation of default string encodings:

However, it does not mention String.new without an argument, which is the one case where I see inconsistent behavior.

irb(main):001> "".encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
irb(main):002> String.new("").encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
irb(main):003> String.new(a="").encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
irb(main):004> String.new.encoding
=> #<Encoding:BINARY (ASCII-8BIT)>

Should this be documented or changed?

[Eregon (Benoit Daloze)]

It's just a documentation bug.
It's always BINARY for String.new without args.

[deivid (David Rodríguez)]

Cool, thanks for the info, I'll create a PR to improve the documentation.

[deivid (David Rodríguez)]

I created https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/12548 for this.

[deivid (David Rodríguez)]

• Status changed from Open to Closed

Applied in changeset git|cde065c32c8db34eaf2c6b8646a2d4a34e20a3ec.

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Clarify documentation for encoding of String.new without arguments

[Bug #21025]