Symbols are never garbage collected in Ruby. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/659755/ruby-symbols-are-not-garbage-collected-then-isnt-it-better-to-use-a-string
-- Richard Schneeman http://heroku.com @schneems (http://twitter.com/schneems) On Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 11:00 AM, Gary Weaver wrote: > Something that would work instead of a StringPool that is Ruby-ish is use of > symbols. Symbols are Ruby's answer to the StringPool. If things are stored as > symbols, you can work with them similarly as to what you would expect and > reduce # objects, e.g. > > jruby-1.7.0.preview2 :008 > :error.object_id > => 2050 > jruby-1.7.0.preview2 :009 > :error.object_id > => 2050 > jruby-1.7.0.preview2 :010 > :error.to_s.chomp!('or').to_sym > => :err > jruby-1.7.0.preview2 :011 > :error.to_s.chomp!('or').to_sym.object_id > => 2052 > jruby-1.7.0.preview2 :012 > :error.to_s.chomp!('or').to_sym.object_id > => 2052 > > So basically if everywhere in Rails documentation that referred to strings > instead specified constants, and if the method didn't support constants that > would be a good goal: > http://guides.rubyonrails.org > > But still, whenever you output a string to a log, it becomes a string. So, > you might be able to make some inroads by changes to Rails and related > documentation, but if Ruby "fixed it" instead via something like StringPool > (again- a major and breaking change), then you wouldn't have to worry about > wasting all that time on the Rails side. > > In addition, many text editors and IDEs have different colors for Strings, so > that keys and values stand out better in examples like: > > class Employee < ActiveRecord::Base > has_many :subordinates, :class_name => "Employee", > :foreign_key => "manager_id" > belongs_to :manager, :class_name => "Employee" > end > > So, if you switch to all symbols, it is a little more monotone, colorwise. > However, if you switch to Ruby 1.9 key/value then you could color the key in > a: :b differently by the fact that it ends in a colon vs. starting with one. > Unfortunately, the existing default color schemes don't usually do that. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby on Rails: Core" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rubyonrails-core/-/W-QsFXyc4cwJ. > To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-core@googlegroups.com > (mailto:rubyonrails-core@googlegroups.com). > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > rubyonrails-core+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > (mailto:rubyonrails-core+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com). > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Core" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-core@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-core+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core?hl=en.
