From: "drbrain (Eric Hodel)" Date: 2013-02-14T13:08:51+09:00 Subject: [ruby-core:52247] [ruby-trunk - Feature #7849][Rejected] Symbol#to_str Issue #7849 has been updated by drbrain (Eric Hodel). Status changed from Open to Rejected You cannot gsub, enumerate characters in or alter encoding of a Symbol, so it is not a string representation. ---------------------------------------- Feature #7849: Symbol#to_str https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7849#change-36272 Author: trans (Thomas Sawyer) Status: Rejected Priority: Normal Assignee: Category: core Target version: next minor Even though a Symbol is not technically an honest-to-goodness String, from the standpoint of simple practicality it would help to have Symbol#to_str defined. There are times when we want an argument to accept a String or a Symbol, but don't really want it to accept any type of object under the sun that responds to #to_s --which is just about anything. This is especially the case when writing DSLs. Having Symbol#to_str is the nice solution to this. Defining Symbol#to_str may be an exception to the rule, but it's one worth making. -- http://bugs.ruby-lang.org/