Bug #20433: Hash.inspect for some hash returns syntax invalid representation

• Status: Open
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• Backport: 3.0: UNKNOWN, 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN

[tompng (tomoya ishida)]

For these hashes, Hash.inspect returns a syntax invalid representation:

{ :a! => 1 } # {:a!=>1}
{ :a? => 1 } # {:a?=>1}
{ :* => 1 }  # {:*=>1}
{ :== => 1 } # {:===>1}
{ :< => 1 }  # {:<=>1}

eval(hash.inspect) will raise SyntaxError.
Although inspect does not guarantee that the result can be eval-ed, it'd be confusing for these few cases.

Maybe related to https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20235

[byroot (Jean Boussier)]

An easy fix would be for Hash#inspect to include spaces around =>. It would also read much nicer in my opinion.

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

Or use {a!: 1} for symbol keys?

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

Ditto for pp.rb.

[jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans)]

I submitted a pull request for the most backwards compatible change, which only uses spaces around => for symbols ending in [!?*=<]: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/10737

[Eregon (Benoit Daloze)]

I think always having spaces would help readability.
If we don't want to change that, then how about simply quoting these symbols that need it?

[Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme)]

If we don't want to change that, then how about simply quoting these symbols that need it?

+1