Hi -- On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, Tobias Reif wrote: > so it's still > > String < Array > > A string is an array of characters which are arrays of bytes. > > No? If you literally mean that String should be understood as inheriting all the methods from Array, then I think this is too rigid a picture. I'm thinking of some of the functionalities which are complementary as between arrays and strings -- pack/unpack, join/split -- and also #flatten comes to mind as an array method whose equivalent for strings isn't clear. I've always thought that strings are basically arrays but merit certain kinds of special treatment, extra methods, optimizations (syntax as well as speed), etc., because they are so common that it's worth trading off some consistency (in their treatment as arrays) to make them easier to handle. David -- David Alan Black home: dblack / candle.superlink.net work: blackdav / shu.edu Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav