David A. Black wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Sam Stephenson wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:31:06 +0900, Gavin Sinclair
>><gsinclair / soyabean.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>>  Class.get_class
>>>    Class.get_class("Test::Unit")  -> Test::Unit
>>>    Class.get_class("not-a-class") -> exception
>>>
>>>    # Should 'get_class' be in Class or in Kernel?
>>
>>Why not String?
>>  "Test::Unit".to_class  # => Test::Unit
>>
>>My justification: it's analogous to String#to_sym.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what either of these adds to const_get -- or, to put it
> another way, why there should be a special method to do (essentially)
> a const_get only for strings that represent class names.  

Well, IIRC, const_get doesn't work with symbols that contain "::". In 
other words, const_get( "Test::Unit" ) would fail--you'd have to do 
const_get("Test").const_get("Unit"), which becomes cumbersome. I can 
think of several instances in my Net::SSH and Net::SFTP stuff alone 
where a standard #get_class method would have been useful (though far 
from necessary).

- Jamis

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3 / email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis