Feature #5196: true should be True.

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[Tomoki_Imai (Tomoki Imai )]

Hello.I'm Tomoki Imai.

I found Ruby has inconsistency.

true is constant value.
In irb,

true = nil
(irb):5: Can't assign to true
true = nil
^
from (irb):5
from :0

We can't change value true.

In Ruby,we use capitalized name for constant value.
For example,
A = 3 .

This is why true should be True.

[steveklabnik (Steve Klabnik)]

In Ruby, you can update constants, though:

ruby-1.9.2-p180 :001 > A = 5
 => 5 
ruby-1.9.2-p180 :002 > A = 6
(irb):2: warning: already initialized constant A
 => 6 

So I don't see how this would change anything.

[drbrain (Eric Hodel)]

There are the constants TRUE, FALSE and NIL which contain true, false and nil

[rkh (Konstantin Haase)]

But constant doesn't mean you can't change it in Ruby... keywords are basically the only thing you can't change. And most of those are not capitalized.
true is a literal, just like nil or 250. You can't change those either.

Ease of use and conventions always outweigh consistency and simplicity in Ruby.

Konstantin

On Aug 16, 2011, at 19:28 , Tomoki Imai wrote:

Issue #5196 has been reported by Tomoki Imai .

---

Bug #5196: true should be True.
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/5196

Author: Tomoki Imai
Status: Open
Priority: Normal
Assignee:
Category: core
Target version:
ruby -v: ruby 1.8.7 (2011-06-30 patchlevel 352) [x86_64-linux]

Hello.I'm Tomoki Imai.

I found Ruby has inconsistency.

true is constant value.
In irb,

true

[Tomoki_Imai (Tomoki Imai )]

Thank you for informations.

But why there is TRUE?

irb(main):007:0> TRUE = false
(irb):7: warning: already initialized constant TRUE
=> false
TRUE can be update.
So,There is no reasons why I use TRUE.

And,I think,there is no reasons why true is not True.
With capitalized True,we can manifest "You can't update True!"

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

• Tracker changed from Bug to Feature

[naruse (Yui NARUSE)]

"true" is not constant but keyword like false, nil, if, else, FILE, LINE, and so on.

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

In common, all uppercase names are used for constants, except for classes and modules.
So True doesn't seem like an ordinary constant, and it doesn't feel nice for me.

Why there is TRUE is the historical reason.
In very early ruby, there wasn't the keyword "true", but only the constant "TRUE".

[mame (Yusuke Endoh)]

• Status changed from Open to Rejected

I believe this is hopeless.

--
Yusuke Endoh [e-mail]