Hello!

	May anyone enlighten me with knowledge of how symbol integer value
(Symbol#to_i) is generated ?
	Also, I'm interested why using it as a hash key is about 5-8 times slower
then string of the same size ?
	I understand that Symbols are not intended for this purpose, but I end up
using them as named constants, also using as a hash keys. My current work
involves a lot of hash manipulation (and in multiple-level-deep
cycles/sorting routines), so any performance gains are valuable. I tried
using strings instead of symbols - it makes it run a lot faster, but look a
lot uglier.
Also, imho there is only one Symbol with a defined name, but we have
multiple same string - this may increase memory (and GC) load. So in any
cases I prefer to go with Symbols,
but not until someone explain what's all the stuff about them :)

Thanks for your attention
Aristarkh A Zagorodnikov, Lead Programmer, W3D Group
http://www.w3d.ru /// xm / w3d.ru /// ICQ UIN 36987938