Added String#at, String#from, String#to, String#first, String#last in ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::String::Access to ease access to individual characters and substrings in a string serving basically as human names for range access. Added easy extendability to the inflector through Inflector.inflections (using the Inflector::Inflections singleton class)

git-svn-id: http://svn-commit.rubyonrails.org/rails/trunk@2110 5ecf4fe2-1ee6-0310-87b1-e25e094e27de

2 files changed, 61 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string.rb b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string.rb
index 3056f74744..fce0557c64 100644
--- a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string.rb
+++ b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string.rb
@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
 require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/string/inflections'
 require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/string/conversions'
+require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/string/access'
 
 class String #:nodoc:
-  include ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::String::Inflections
+  include ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::String::Access
   include ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::String::Conversions
+  include ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::String::Inflections
 end
diff --git a/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string/access.rb b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string/access.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f59690b032
--- /dev/null
+++ b/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string/access.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+module ActiveSupport #:nodoc:
+  module CoreExtensions #:nodoc:
+    module String #:nodoc:
+      # Makes it easier to access parts of a string, such as specific characters and substrings.
+      module Access
+        # Returns the character at the +position+ treating the string as an array (where 0 is the first character).
+        #
+        # Examples: 
+        #   "hello".at(0)  # => "h"
+        #   "hello".at(4)  # => "o"
+        #   "hello".at(10) # => nil
+        def at(position)
+          self[position, 1]
+        end
+        
+        # Returns the remaining of the string from the +position+ treating the string as an array (where 0 is the first character).
+        #
+        # Examples: 
+        #   "hello".from(0)  # => "hello"
+        #   "hello".from(2)  # => "llo"
+        #   "hello".from(10) # => nil
+        def from(position)
+          self[position..-1]
+        end
+        
+        # Returns the beginning of the string up to the +position+ treating the string as an array (where 0 is the first character).
+        #
+        # Examples: 
+        #   "hello".to(0)  # => "h"
+        #   "hello".to(2)  # => "hel"
+        #   "hello".to(10) # => "hello"
+        def to(position)
+          self[0..position]
+        end
+
+        # Returns the first character of the string or the first +limit+ characters.
+        #
+        # Examples: 
+        #   "hello".first     # => "h"
+        #   "hello".first(2)  # => "he"
+        #   "hello".first(10) # => "hello"
+        def first(limit = 1)
+          self[0..(limit - 1)]
+        end
+        
+        # Returns the last character of the string or the last +limit+ characters.
+        #
+        # Examples: 
+        #   "hello".last     # => "o"
+        #   "hello".last(2)  # => "lo"
+        #   "hello".last(10) # => "hello"
+        def last(limit = 1)
+          self[(-limit)..-1]
+        end
+      end
+    end
+  end
+end
\ No newline at end of file