Wild &
Weird Ideas
An overview of Ruby 1.9
LRUG 10th december 2007

What is it?
• The last odd-numbered release before
Ruby 2.0
• “Wild &RubyConf Ideas”
Weird
- Matz, 2005
• More open development
• http://www.rcrchive.net/

When is it coming out?
Christmas
2007

The Biggest Change
becomes

The Biggest Change
... but let’s not complain
ours isn’t much better!

The Real Biggest Change
YARV

YARV
3 Things It Means To Us
1. New developer
• not matz-bound
2. Better Performance
• in places
3. Native threads
• vs. green threads

Other Changes
Module#*_instance_methods
Enumerable#first(n) Limit input Enumerable#cycle Method#name
String#bytes Symbol#=== matches strings Removed Exception#to_str Array.try_convert Module#class_variable_defined?
$SAFE and bound methods String no longer an Enumerable String#upto Enumerable#inject (#reduce) without a block Hash#to_s is equivalent to Hash#inspect
Method#owner Non-blocking IO Enumerator#rewind String#partition, #rpartition Arity of blocks without arguments
Struct#inspect Enumerable#group_by Process.daemon IO#lines String#lines
Array#[m,n] = nil places nil in the array GC.stress, GC.stress= Range#include? Fiber: coroutines/micro-threads Array#nitems
Hash#_compare_by_identity, #compare_by_identity? Object#=~ Enumerable methods called without a block Method#receiver Enumerable#count
Mandatory arguments after optional arguments allowed String#encoding #to_path in File.<blah> Module#const_defined?, #const_get Dir.exist?
New File and Dir operations ?c semantics Array#to_s is equivalent to Array#inspect Method used for splat arguments: #to_splat Regexp#=== matches symbols
#class_variable_{set,get} Block argument to Array#index, Array#rindex String#ord #instance_exec Zero-length symbols allowed
IO.try_convert Semantics for Hash#each and Hash#each_pair Deprecated: StringScanner Proc#yield Deprecated: Kernel#getc
New literal hash syntax Block local variables Binding#eval Range#min, Range#max send doesn't always call private methods anymore
Deprecated: Object#type Numeric#upto, #downto, #times, #step BasicObject Process.exec IO#bytes
Enumerable#reduce proc is now a synonym of Proc.new Integer#pred Deprecated: Kernel.to_a Multiple splats allowed
Kernel#require Enumerator#with_index StringIO#readpartial Dir.[], Dir.glob Enumerable#each_with_index
Passing blocks to #[] Module#attr is an alias of attr_reader News semantics for block arguments String.try_convert Symbols: restriction on literal symbols
Regexp.try_convert Deprecated: File.exists? Deprecated: Hash#index Method#hash, Proc#hash IO#ungetc, StringIO#ungetc
IO#getc Block arguments are always local Deprecated: Symbol#to_int Extra subclassing check when binding UnboundMethods Equality of exceptions
Deprecated: Removed Array and Hash #indices, #indexes Enumerable#find_index Symbol#to_proc Integer#odd?, #even? .() and calling Procs without #call/#[]
Deprecated:VERSION and friends Symbol#intern Timezone information preserved on Marshal.dump/load Block arguments Kernel#define_singleton_method
Process.setrlimit Hash#select Kernel#open Array#pop, Array#shift Array#product
IO#initialize now accepts an IO argument String#force_encoding Symbol methods similar to those in String Kernel#singleton_methods, Kernel#methods Regexp#match, String#match
Math#log and Math#log2 Array#combination String#unpack with a block defined? and local variables Newlines allowed before ternary colon
String#hash Numeric#scalar?, Complex#scalar?
\"One-char-wide\" semantics for String#[] and String#[]= Enumerator#each #module_exec
String#each_char Enumerable#min_by, #max_by Numeric#fdiv SystemStackError Enumerable#drop
Range#cover? Arguments to #[] Integer(nil) raises TypeError Enumerable#minmax, #minmax_by Symbol#encoding
Deprecated: ENV.index Proc#lambda? String#start_with?, #end_with? String#clear Numeric#div
__method__ and __callee__ Object#tap Hash.try_convert Array#permutation Enumerable#zip
New format in Time#to_s String has encoding-awareness Enumerable#take NameError Class variables are not inherited
IO & StringIO #getbyte, #readbyte Class of singleton classes Kernel#instance_variable_defined? New syntax for lambdas printf-style formatted strings (%)

Other Changes
a lot

New Syntax

irb> c = -> (a, b) {a.times{puts b}}
=> #<Proc:0x48adf0@(irb):34 (lambda)>
irb> c.call(2, 'hello')
hello
hello
=> 2

irb> c = ->(a, b = ‘muz’) do
irb* a.times{puts b}
irb> end
=> #<Proc:0x52f17a@(irb):50 (lambda)>
irb> c.call(1)
muz
=> 1

irb> c = ->(a, b, &c) do
irb* a.times{c.call(b)}
irb> end
=> #<Proc:0x65cd68@(irb):36 (lambda)>
irb> c.call(2, 'hello'){|b| puts b*2}
hellohello
hellohello
=> 2

irb> def lolmatz(n1, v=‘SPESIFY’, n2)
irb> “IN YR #{n1} #{v}IN YR #{n2}”
irb> end
=> nil
irb> lolmatz(‘RUBY’,’LANGUJ’)
=> “IN YR RUBY SPESIFYIN YR LANGUJ”

irb> c = -> (a, b) {a.times{puts b}}
=> #<Proc:0x48adf0@(irb):34 (lambda)>
irb> c.(2, 'hello')
hello
hello
=> 2

irb> num = [1,2,3]
irb> bers = [4,5,6]
irb> numbers = [*num, *bers]
=> [1,2,3,4,5,6]

Changes to
the Standard
Library

String
• Encoding aware
• methods are char, not byte, based now
• open(‘blah.txt’, ‘r:utf-8’)
• # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
• Bye Bye: $KCODE and jcode
• No longer an Enumerable

Enumerable
• Enumerable::Enumerator part of
core
• Enumerable methods without a block
• [1,2,3].map.with_index {|item,
idx| ...}
• #inject without block
• [1,2,3].inject(:+) #=> 6

Symbol
• Symbol#to_proc
• [”matz”, “koichi”].map(&:upcase)
#=> [“MATZ”, “KOICHI”]
• Treated more like Strings
• #encoding, #empty?, #upcase,
#[], #match, etc...
• #===

IO
• Non blocking IO
• Limit input in read/get methods
• Oddness: doesn’t appear to be encoding
aware

Misc.
• BasicObject at top of class hierarchy
• Class variables (@@woo) not inherited
• proc is now Proc.new instead of
lambda
• Proc#yield a method for yield keyword
• send shouldn’t invoke private methods

The Ruby Ecosystem
• Rubygems
• 0.9.5 is ruby 1.9 compatible
• Rake
• Rails
• ticket #1689 says Rails 2.1
• mongrel
• http://www.moriq.com/ruby/1.9/log/

How do I get it?
• Wait till Christmas?
• http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/ruby/trunk
• Tiger users - upgrade your bison
• Windows binaries available

~fin~

• http://eigenclass.org/hiki.rb?Changes+in+Ruby+1.9
• http://www.atdot.net/yarv/rc2006_sasada_yarv_on_rails.pdf
• http://learnruby.com/ruby-1.9.html
• http://www.rubyinside.com/so-heres-the-new-ruby-logo-639.html
• http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/community/ruby-core/
• http://www.rubyist.net/~matz/slides/
• http://blog.grayproductions.net/categories/the_ruby_vm_interview