From: "Brian Schröder" <ruby@...>
Date: 2005-02-18T01:58:06+09:00
Subject: Re: ri needs to tell me what to require

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:24:11 +0900
Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@infofiend.com> wrote:

> On Feb 17, 2005, at 03:15, Brian Schr�der wrote:
> > In principle a +1 from me, but check also:
> >
> > http://groups.google.de/groups?threadm=6D24974B-123E-11D9-8C3F 
> > -000A95D2DFAE%40mac.com
> 
> Which says:
> 
>  >> Excellent idea. The only problem is that, as things stand, this isn't
>  >> easily knowable, as the file containing the method definition may not
>  >> be the one that you end up requiring into your Ruby source. For
>  >> example, the various YAML methods are defined in files in the yaml/
>  >> directory, but you don't require these into your code. Instead you
>  >> say
>  >>
>  >>   require "yaml"
>  >>
>  >> and it drags them in for you.
> 
> In principle then, the file 'yaml/foo.rb' should contain some kind of  
> comment saying "hey, if you want the functionality that this file  
> provides, require 'yaml' not this file".  That way people who are  
> looking at that file in their favourite editor can know how to get  
> access to those functions.  It should be possible to do that in a way  
> that rdoc can pick up on it, right?
> 

Yes, you could put this comment at the end of the description of each function. But this is a lot of "repeat yourself", and who wants that?

So it seems someone has to think about extending rdoc with some new meta commands, create a patch, discuss and standardize it and get it included. Sadly thats more work than I have time, so I just hope that someone else will do this. Not the nice way, but I don't see another possibility.

Regards,

Brian