Hmmm, thanks, but it's a bit 'non-obvious' to casual Ruby programmers 
(who will have to understand my code).  'to_a' is pretty darn clear.  :(
Matz, somebody?  Why is to_a being obsoleted?  :(

Gennady wrote:

> Patrick Bennett wrote:
>
>> I find it immensely useful when dealing with arrays to be able to 
>> convert a source argument (that may or may not be in an array) into 
>> an array so I can concatenate it, perform a set-union on it, etc. 
>> with a destination array.
>> What is the real reason for this, and if it's being obsoleted, what 
>> am I supposed to use instead if I need to insure I'm dealing with an 
>> array ?
>>
> I was also surprised to learn that Object#to_a is going to be 
> obsolete. However, I immediately found a replacement for it that I 
> like even more:
>
> instead of doing
> o.to_a
>
> I do now
> [ *o ]
>
> And this is not reported as obsolete in Ruby 1.8.1 yet ;-)
>
> Gennady.
>
>