Allow the character literal syntax "?"

[lucasferronato]

The guide is discouraging the use of literals syntax ?x but I think they should be used for single and double quotes, it seems clearer to me.

str.gsub(?',?"))
str.gsub("'", '"')

which one is better?

[bbatsov]

That's pretty debatable - e.g. that's not really a character literal syntax since Ruby 1.9. It's just another way to write a single-character string, so I'd rather use a string instead of confusing people with an odd special syntax that has lost its original purpose.

[bbatsov]

Another point - gsub does string (or regexp) substitution anyways, so it's strange to see something that doesn't look like a string passed to it.

[scudelletti]

IMHO ?x is hard to google therefore hard for people that don't know what it does. And this syntax is even rare among old rubists.

I'm not a fan of rules exceptions because if there is too much it is hard to remember.
So for me it's easier to remember to avoid using ?a instead of using it in just one specific case.

Just my opinion though.

[lucasferronato]

That's pretty debatable

It was my intention opening this issue.

e.g. that's not really a character literal syntax since Ruby 1.9. It's just another way to write a single-character string

I used "character literal syntax" because this is how the guide calls it.

so I'd rather use a string instead of confusing people with an odd special syntax that has lost its original purpose.

I think it's only odd because it's not used at all but just open your rails console and run ?' and you'll understand what it does.

Another point - gsub does string (or regexp) substitution anyways, so it's strange to see something that doesn't look like a string passed to it.

Again, it is strange because we don't use it, for me, when I began learning ruby it was weird to use %() for interpolated and double quoted strings but now it's not.

IMHO ?x is hard to google therefore hard for people that don't know what it does. And this syntax is even rare among old rubists.

Just googled ruby question mark string the first result explains exactly what the operators do but if you remove "string" from the whatever search term with "ruby question mark" in it it's in fact hard to find it :(

I'm not a fan of rules exceptions because if there is too much it is hard to remember.
So for me it's easier to remember to avoid using ?a instead of using it in just one specific case.

I don't meant to force people using ? and stop using quotes but instead allow using ? too when the single character string is a quote, that way you'll not be forced to remember this exception but I'm pretty sure people will remember anyways.

@bbatsov @scudelletti Sorry if I sounded rude at some point but english is not my native language, I just meant to show you my opinion :)

[bbatsov]

No worries. My biggest concern with it is that it's a legacy remnant from Ruby 1.8 and until very recently it was very likely that it was going to be removed in Ruby 3.0 (and it is still probably going to be removed later). That's why I think we can't really encourage people to use it, knowing that a few years down the road it might cause breakage to their code.