Feature #5009: Bang method (!) consistency in Ruby 2 API

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: -
• Target version: 3.0

[sunaku (Suraj Kurapati)]

=begin
Hello,

In Ruby 2, please use bang methods (those that end with !) consistently in the API. For example, the Ruby 1 API inconsistently names the following "destructive" methods plainly (without a bang):

• Array#push
• Array#pop
• Array#shift
• Array#unshift
• Array#concat
• Array#delete
• Array#clear

Please convert these into bang methods in the Ruby 2 API.

Thanks for your consideration.
=end

[adgar (Michael Edgar)]

This is a common misconception about the use of bang methods in Ruby. Bang does not indicate that a method mutates its receiver, merely that it should be used with caution.

A good writeup on this can be found here: http://dablog.rubypal.com/2007/8/15/bang-methods-or-danger-will-rubyist

From the conclusion:

If you let go of the notion that ! means destructive, and if you think through the naming and pairing of dangerous and non-dangerous methods, you’ll see how valuable a flag the ! can be.

[antares (Michael Klishin)]

If this is a proposal for renaming aforementioned methods, it will break a lot of existing code. If the idea is to add aliases, it will introduce Ruby 2-specific methods that will not be used for a really long time by developers who want to maintain compatibility with multiple Ruby versions.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

-1
ActiveRecord's save/save! is also a good example.

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

Just for the record, there is one method that I think we should add a bang if we still could, and this is String#force_encoding. The reason isn't that it changes String itself (which it does), but that I have come across quite some places where I use string.dup.force_encoding. It would have been best to use force_encoding! for what's now force_encoding, and force_encoding for the copying variant. But I agree with both Michaels and Yui that it's too late to change.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

Martin Dürst wrote:

Just for the record, there is one method that I think we should add a bang if we still could, and this is String#force_encoding. The reason isn't that it changes String itself (which it does), but that I have come across quite some places where I use string.dup.force_encoding. It would have been best to use force_encoding! for what's now force_encoding, and force_encoding for the copying variant. But I agree with both Michaels and Yui that it's too late to change.

About String#force_encoding, I think add an alias named String#encoding= may be good.
But it's still under consideration.

[sunaku (Suraj Kurapati)]

Interesting, the Rails' save/save! example makes sense.

And why worry about keeping backwards compatibility?

Ruby 2 can break it, in the interest of removing cruft.

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

• Status changed from Open to Closed

Close this; force_encoding is another problem.