From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2005-02-20T22:01:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Getting a method or class within a file

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 20:54:42 +0900, Asfand Yar Qazi <ay1204@qazi.f2s.com> wrote:
> Pit Capitain wrote:
> > Asfand Yar Qazi schrieb:
> >
> >> I want to be able to do the following:
> >>
> >> lots of Ruby files are in a directory, each containing stuff and a
> >> method 'init_file'.  I want to be able to 'require' each file, and
> >> then call the 'init_file' method within that file.
> >>
> >> Each file will have its own 'init_file' method, so I can't just do a:
> >>
> >> require 'file'
> >> init_file
> >>
> >> because the init_file method will have been defined before hand.
> >
> >
> > Not that I would recommend that, but you can do
> >
> >   require 'file1'
> >   init_file
> >
> >   require 'file2'
> >   init_file
> >
> > because the init_file method of file2 will overwrite the init_file
> > method of file1.
> >
> > But: of course this is bad style. Where do your Ruby files come from?
> > Can't you wrap the code in each file in a class or module?
> >
> 
> It's also thread-unsafe.
> 
> You're right.  I think what I'll do is to have a combination of a
> Module name and a filename that will allow there to be an init method
> contained within 'Module', contained within 'file'.
> 
> But then I'll have to store 2 entries: filename and module name.  But
> I suppose that's ok.  Perhaps I should use the following syntax:
> 
> Module@path/to/file.rb
> 
> to show that a module is in a certain file?

It sounds like you're basically doing a plugin framework.

Ruwiki uses something like this when reading its Token classes. Look
at lib/ruwiki/wiki/tokens.rb to see how I do it.

There is a plugin framework (FreeBASE) that may also be suitable for
you in this instance.

-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca