Hello.
This seems to be trivial, yet I can’t find an explanation for it
anywhere online. Apologies if I’m asking the obvious.
If you create a constant hash:
CONSTANTHASH = { :foo => "foobar" }
x = CONSTANTHASH[:foo]
x << "-suffix"
p CONSTANTHASH
One gets the following output:
{ :foo => "foobar-suffix" }
nil
So, this sort of makes sense if one considers that variables in Ruby
are references. So Ruby only protects the hash, not the values keys in
the hash point to. But… is there any way to protect the values, and
not just the keys?
Thanks.
Warm Regards,
Wiktor M.
On Thu, 1 Jun 2006 04:29:39 +0900, “Wiktor M.” [email protected]
wrote:
p CONSTANTHASH
It’s not a constant hash, but rather a constant which holds a reference
to a hash. The constant can’t be changed to point to a different hash
(well … not without a warning anyway), but the hash itself can still
be modified:
CONSTANTHASH = { :foo => “foobar” }
CONSTANTHASH[:bar] = “zoom”
p CONSTANTHASH[:bar]
If you want to render an object immune to modification, freeze it.
CONSTANTHASH = { :foo => “foobar”.freeze }.freeze
(It isn’t necessary to freeze “value types” like symbols or fixnums,
though, since – unlike strings or hashes – they are naturally
immutable.)
-mental
On 5/31/06, Wiktor M. [email protected] wrote:
p CONSTANTHASH
One gets the following output:
{ :foo => "foobar-suffix" }
nil
So, this sort of makes sense if one considers that variables in Ruby
are references. So Ruby only protects the hash, not the values keys in
the hash point to. But… is there any way to protect the values, and
not just the keys?
Constants don’t work the way that you think they do. I’ll be posting
an article about this soon; I just haven’t decided where to put it.
-austin
Hello.
Well, thanks for taking the time to do the article… and if you need
anyone to proof-read/test it. 
Cheers.
Wiktor
Thank you. I was surprised by the way hash behaves, but I do
understand why. Its obvious in hind-sight, I guess you could say. But
thanks for the .freeze example, that’s exactly what I was look for.
Many thanks,
Wiktor