Issue #20235 has been updated by shan (Shannon Skipper). Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme) wrote in #note-3:
@shan it's not "an uncommented `=>` designating a return value", it's (supposed to be) a hash literal like `p 1=>2`. With spaces maybe it's more obvious: `p $stdin.closed? => true`
Ah, I misunderstood the intention but should have caught on with the second "does not lead to an error."
In ruby 1.8 character literals were useful for things like `"hello"[1] == ?e`. But nowadays there's not a single reason to use `?e` instead of `"e"`.
Yeah, agree on their use in 1.8 and why they were carried forward in 1.9 for compatibility. On the other hand, a `?e` or `?\n` can look crisp compared to a `'e'` or `"\n"`, make it clear to the reader on quick glance that it's a single character. Since some folk still use them for stylistic reasons there would be some compatibility issues removing them. If they were *only* kept for 1.8 compatibility it might be nice to document that and deprecate them now that 1.8 compatibility is a moot point. On the other hand, TIMTOWTDI and with no worry about Ruby 1.8 anymore so they could just be embraced as a safe and predictable alternative to String literals for single characters. I'm curious if Matz intends them to continue to be used and be a future part of the language or would discourage all modern usage? ---------------------------------------- Feature #20235: Deprecate CHAR syntax https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20235#change-106591 * Author: Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal ---------------------------------------- I propose deprecating the `?c` syntax. It served a purpose in ruby <= 1.8, but no longer. The reason I'm proposing this is because today I ran into this error: ```ruby p $stdin.closed?=>true # comparison of String with true failed (ArgumentError) ``` I was completed mystified, and had to resort to Ripper to figure out what's going on ``` p *Ripper.lex("p $stdin.closed?=>true") [[1, 0], :on_ident, "p", CMDARG] [[1, 1], :on_sp, " ", CMDARG] [[1, 2], :on_gvar, "$stdin", END] [[1, 8], :on_period, ".", DOT] [[1, 9], :on_ident, "closed", ARG] [[1, 15], :on_CHAR, "?=", END] #OOOOHH!!!!! [[1, 17], :on_op, ">", BEG] [[1, 18], :on_kw, "true", END] ``` We don't have to commit to a removal schedule right now, but I think it would at least be good to print a deprecation message if $VERBOSE. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/