mortee wrote:
> Fernando Cacciola wrote:
>> Hi people,
>>
>> Is there a way to "intern" a string so that it becomes denoted by a
>> symbol?
>>
>> Something like:
>>
>> # This doesn't work as I wrote it, I know
>>> repetitive_message <= "blah blah blah"
>>
>> puts :repetitive_message
>> puts :repetitive_message
>> puts :repetitive_message
>> puts :repetitive_message
>
> If you use
>
> puts :"blah blah blah"
>
Ha.. I missed that you could prefix a string with ":" like that.

> then no matter how many times you write it, the symbol literal will
> reference the same symbol (as long as the literal is the same, of
> course). Also, you can assign either a simple string, or a symbol to a
> variable, thus reusing it without repeating in the source.
>
> my_str = "some string"
> my_sym = :"some symbol"
>
Right.
If I name the "variable" as "MY_STR" is then officially a "constant" 
(instead of a variable) right?
(and that would be preferred in this case)


-- 
Fernando Cacciola
SciSoft
http://fcacciola.50webs.com