Dave Thomas wrote:

> Steve Tuckner <SAT / MULTITECH.com> writes:
> 
>> Is there a built in way to handle conversion of hex values in strings to
>> integers? Examples of possible syntax if it doesn't exist
>>  
>> "0xF0".to_i        # have it handle leading 0x for hex or 0 for octal
> 
>   "0xF0".hex
> 
> 
> It's a method in String

It's an interesting point, though, in that you have to know, in advance, 
that the string is a hex value (which you would most of the time, but I 
could imagine cases where you have user interaction and it would be nice to 
allow them to use '0' or '0x' prefixes if they want to).

Obviously, the programmer can do a quick test, but since this is fairly 
entrenched idiom, perhaps String#to_i could include the test?

IMHO that would be the "least surprising" to the average programmer :-).

Alternatively, it sounds like a sufficiently useful thing to add as a new 
method of String.