> L?hett?j?: Joe Van Dyk <joevandyk / gmail.com>
> Aihe: Re: symbols vs strings vs ?
> 
> On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 09:35:41 +0900, Assaph Mehr <assaph / gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> > > Any rules or guidelines on when to use symbols vs strings?  I'm not
> > > sure as to the advantages of using symbols.
> > 
> > Symbols are immutable strings. Every occurence of the same symbol
> > correspondes to the same single object, while every occurence of the
> > same string is a different object (with the same value). Thus symbols
> > are a bit faster and cheaper to use in things like case statements,
> > hash keys etc.
> > It's also usually a bit nicer to read in the code, as it signifies that
> > what you're looking it at is a unique identifier, rather than something
> > that can have a dynamic content.
> > 
> > HTH,
> > Assaph
> 
> It did help!  Thanks.

Always use a Symbol rather than a String, except if you 
need to be able to print the string to file/screen/etc.

E