From: "trans.  (T. Onoma)" <transami@...>
Date: 2004-11-15T10:22:50+09:00
Subject: Re: OpenStruct#update ?

On Sunday 14 November 2004 06:16 pm, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
| Hi,
|
| It's amazing that OpenStruct which is a proof of concept tiny toy
| attracts so many users.

It is a very convienet way to access data that is object polymorphic.

Problem, of course, is namespace clash with core methods. What might help: 1) 
a "kernelless" object class which reduces the core methods to bare minimum. 
2) Have specialized core aliases like __id__ and __send__ (e.g. __class__) 
for all methods considered core. These *cannot* be overridden ever. And 3) 
have private and public methods have separate namespaces --could that help? 
Might that even boost method lookup speeds? Just some thoughts on the matter.

On the whole I'd rather be able to override methods.

| In message "Re: OpenStruct#update ?"
|
|     on Mon, 15 Nov 2004 06:07:11 +0900, "trans.  (T. Onoma)" 
<transami@runbox.com> writes:
| |Hmm.. I also just had another related thought. I might also be useful if a
| |normal object could be "OpenStruct'd". I have a need for it at the moment.
| |Currently I take an object in as input and then dynamically define
| | instance vars with accessors on it as required, but often no initial
| | object is given in which case an OpenStruct is much easier to use. I'd
| | rather just have the OpenStruct capability from the get go.
|
| Can you be more specific, preferably with code example?

Sure. Okay first, basically what I was doing, given object o and data in hash 
h:

    h.each do |k,v|
      o.instance_variable_set("@#{k}", v)
      o.instance_eval <<-EOS
        def #{k}; @#{k}; end 
        def #{k}=(x); @#{k}=x; end
      EOS
    end

Now if o is an OpenStruct, the above is much easier, well, easier after I've 
added the before mentioned #update method:

  o.update( h )

But o might not be an OpenStruct --the library user may have a pre-made object 
that they want to use. What might be of use then, rather then a stand alone 
OpenStruct object is a way to "open" a regular object:

  o.extend OpenStruct

Actually, if one could extend using a class, instead of just a module, I think 
it might almost work just like that.

Thanks,
T.