Feature #5006: Allow ~> as a method

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
• Target version: -

[trans (Thomas Sawyer)]

It occurs to me that since RubyGems uses ~> as a recognized version constraint operator (along with >, <, >= and <=) it would be nice if Ruby supported it as a valid method. Ultimately RubyGems could use the new method in it's code. But more generally it could be useful too, as it has a couple of nice features, namely the '~' part can be thought of as meaning "approximate", and as a whole it looks like a pointing arrow.

[mame (Yusuke Endoh)]

• Status changed from Open to Assigned
• Assignee set to matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)

[mame (Yusuke Endoh)]

• Status changed from Assigned to Rejected

Hello,

This syntax would bring ambiguity.
Consider "0.~>1". This can parse as:

0.send("~>", 1)

as well as:

0.send("~") > 1

. So I close this ticket as Rejected.

There are some incomplete or arguable points in this proposal.

• Doesn't Ruby define builtin Integer#~> ? And what's the behavior?
  If Ruby does not provide Integer#~>, this feature will encourage
  users to define their own Integer#~>, which will bring collision
  and confusion.

• An inversion method <~ will be needed. This also brings additional
  parsing ambiguities.

• The looking is awkward with Japanese font, because a tilde character
  is printed as superscript ;-)

--
Yusuke Endoh [e-mail]