CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
Yang
Yang

Reputation: 888

Why does coerce 2.coerce(3.3) return [3.3, 2.0]?

If I enter

1.1.coerce(1)

Fixnum is coerced to Float:

[1.0,1.1]

but when I try:

1.coerce(1.1)

I got:

[1.1,1.0]

Why is that?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 49

Answers (2)

sawa
sawa

Reputation: 168139

There is a hierarchy between subclasses of numbers in the sense that an instance of one class can be converted to another class without losing information but not vice versa. The hierarchy goes (actually, the order between Rational and Float seems the opposite to me, and I don't know why it is like this):

Fixnum -> Bignum -> Rational -> Float -> Complex

When you have a Fixnum and Float, you can convert the Fixnum instance into a Float without losing information, so that is what is done. If Float were to be converted to a Fixnum, that would mean loss of information.

Upvotes: 1

Patrick Oscity
Patrick Oscity

Reputation: 54684

Read on: http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/Numeric.html#method-i-coerce

coerce(numeric) → array

If a numeric is the same type as num, returns an array containing numeric and num. Otherwise, returns an array with both a numeric and num represented as Float objects.

This coercion mechanism is used by Ruby to handle mixed-type numeric operations: it is intended to find a compatible common type between the two operands of the operator.

Upvotes: 1

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