From: Eric Anderson <eric@...>
Date: 2004-12-21T02:27:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Convert one object to another

Tim Hunter wrote:
> I have two objects, big and little. I need to convert big to little. Big and
> little don't have much in common except little's instance variables are a
> subset of big's. That is, to convert big to little I need to copy the
> instance variables they have in common. What's the right way to do this?
> Should I add a "to_little" instance method to big's class, or should I add
> a "from_big" singleton method to little's class? Neither one seems right.

You could do both (TIMTOWTDI) but I would lean towards to_little. It 
matches the existing Ruby library. For example the to_s() methods, or 
the String object's to_i() method. I think there are also to_a() for 
converting to arrays in some objects.

Just my 2 cents,

Eric