Forum: Ruby-core [ruby-trunk - Bug #7975][Open] Why __dir__, not __DIR__

Issue #7975 has been reported by yimutang (Joey Zhou).

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Bug #7975: Why __dir__, not __DIR__
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7975

Author: yimutang (Joey Zhou)
Status: Open
Priority: Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
ruby -v: 2.0


There's a __FILE__ in Ruby 1.x, no __file__
Why __dir__ in Ruby 2.0 is downcase?

It's not consistent.

Issue #7975 has been updated by zzak (Zachary Scott).

Status changed from Open to Rejected

see #3346
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Bug #7975: Why __dir__, not __DIR__
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7975#change-37124

Author: yimutang (Joey Zhou)
Status: Rejected
Priority: Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
ruby -v: 2.0


There's a __FILE__ in Ruby 1.x, no __file__
Why __dir__ in Ruby 2.0 is downcase?

It's not consistent.

Issue #7975 has been updated by yhara (Yutaka HARA).


That is becuase __dir__ is a method, whereas __FILE__ is not.

  $ ruby -ve 'p Kernel.methods'
  ruby 2.0.0p0 (2013-02-24 revision 39474) [x86_64-darwin12.2.1]
  [:sprintf, :format, :Integer, :Float, :String, :Array, :Hash, :warn, 
:raise, :fail,
  :global_variables, :__method__, :__callee__, :__dir__, :eval, .....

__dir__ is prefered to avoid adding a new keyword (see #1961.)
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Bug #7975: Why __dir__, not __DIR__
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7975#change-37128

Author: yimutang (Joey Zhou)
Status: Rejected
Priority: Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
ruby -v: 2.0


There's a __FILE__ in Ruby 1.x, no __file__
Why __dir__ in Ruby 2.0 is downcase?

It's not consistent.

Issue #7975 has been updated by wardrop (Tom Wardrop).


=begin
We did come to any sort of resolution to the naming inconsistency 
between __dir__/__method__ and __FILE__/__LINE__ in any of those 
mentioned issues.

Should we not add __file__ and __line__ as methods, and perhaps 
deprecate the keywords __FILE__ and __LINE__. This would keep it 
consistant with all the other double-underscore methods. To most 
developers who perhaps do not know Ruby as intricately as most of the 
people on this issue tracker, the inconsistency between __dir__ and 
__FILE__ is not just confusing by name, but the fact that one is a 
method and one isn't, is doubly confusing. Definitely not principle of 
least surprise.

This needs to be addressed in my opinion, either through deprecation of 
__FILE__ and __LINE__, or by keeping those keywords and simply creating 
Kernel method equivalents for the sack of a consistant API.

While on the topic, someone also suggested in one of those previous 
issues, to give __dir__ an optional join argument, so you could do 
something like this:

(({__dir__('somefile.txt') # => /Users/admin/somefile.txt}))

I'd predict that at least 90% of use cases for __dir__ will involve 
joining it to another path or filename. I can't see any harm in adding 
this. The naming inconstancies are my main concern however.
=end

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Bug #7975: Why __dir__, not __DIR__
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7975#change-37146

Author: yimutang (Joey Zhou)
Status: Rejected
Priority: Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
ruby -v: 2.0


There's a __FILE__ in Ruby 1.x, no __file__
Why __dir__ in Ruby 2.0 is downcase?

It's not consistent.