From: Dave Thomas <dave@...>
Date: 2004-11-11T13:40:43+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby idiom for attribute definition?


On Nov 10, 2004, at 22:27, Corey wrote:

> ( I've got a really small class going, with about 9 or 10 simple 
> attributes -
>  each of them readable and writeable. )

Have you considered using Struct for this? It creates the initialize 
method for you, as well as all the attribute accessors. You can extend 
the class it creates, but you have to access the attributes via 
accessors, and not via instance variables

irb(main):001:0> Thing = Struct.new(:name, :age)
=> Thing
irb(main):002:0> class Thing
irb(main):003:1>   def desc
irb(main):004:2>     "Person #{self.name} is #{self.age} years old"
irb(main):005:2>   end
irb(main):006:1> end
=> nil
irb(main):007:0> t = Thing.new("Walter", 22)
=> #<struct Thing name="Walter", age=22>
irb(main):008:0> t.desc
=> "Person Walter is 22 years old"

You could also say

   class Thing < Struct.new(...)


Cheers

Dave