From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-11-29T18:32:10+09:00
Subject: Re: Seeking advice on some method names

On Monday, November 29, 2004, 3:53:43 PM, David wrote:

>> > I'm not sure what either of these adds to const_get -- or, to put it
>> > another way, why there should be a special method to do (essentially)
>> > a const_get only for strings that represent class names.  
>> 
>> Well, IIRC, const_get doesn't work with symbols that contain "::". In
>> other words, const_get( "Test::Unit" ) would fail--you'd have to do
>> const_get("Test").const_get("Unit"), which becomes cumbersome. I can
>> think of several instances in my Net::SSH and Net::SFTP stuff alone
>> where a standard #get_class method would have been useful (though far
>> from necessary).

> Oh right, I forgot about that.  There are some "deep" const_get
> implementations floating around... along the lines of:

>   def deep_const_get(str)
>     str.split('::').inject(Object) {|a,b| a.const_get(b) }
>   end

> which might help.  

That's precisely how it's implemented in extensions.  BTW it's now
Class.by_name.

  Class.by_name("::Test::Unit") -> Test::Unit

Gavin