From: "James G. Britt" <ruby.talk.list@...>
Date: 2005-02-22T06:31:00+09:00
Subject: Re: Constructor overloading???

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 06:04:07 +0900, Panagiotis Karvounis
<pkarvou@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Does Ruby support constructor overloading?

No; Ruby desn't support method overloading.  But you can pass a
variable number of arguments and do some logic based on what's given.

One approach is to define all the args and set default values:

 def initialize ( x, y="Hey!", z=nil )
 end


Another might be to just accept any number of args as an array:

 def initialize ( *args) 
  # The array args now has the arguments
 end

Or combine them

 def initialize (x=0, y="Hey!", *z=nil )
 end

Or use a hash as the primary argument:

 def initialize (  h={} )
  # Now go look for named arguments in the hash
 end

f = Foo.new( :user_name => "Jimbo!",  :country => "Bronx" )

What are you trying to accomplish?


James