From: Christoph <chr_mail@...>
Date: 2005-05-18T21:22:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Noobie ... Simple Inheriting from Hash Question ..

David A. Black schrieb:

>
> This will work but also suffers from the usual problem with extending
> core classes -- namely, it's unsafe to do unless you're sure
> that your code will run in isolation.
>
> Another possibility is to add the behavior on a per-object basis:
>
>   module MyHashStuff
>     def foo
>       # ...
>     end
>   end
>
>   h = {1,2,3,4}
>   h.extend(MyHashStuff)
>   h.foo                  # h now has the food method

Jet another possibility (it's a pretty rare animal, I've never seen in 
the wild)
is to clone a core class and alter the clone - For example, it should be 
straight
forward to reimplement the Set class as  a clone of  the Hash class.

---
Set = Hash.clone

class Set
    # aliasing stuff is half the rent  ...
    alias :each , :each_key
    alias :include? , :is_key?
  
   private
   # a couple of original method are be private.
   alias :_implement_add,      ,  :store

    # throw out  superfluous original methods
   ['[]', '[]=',:each_key,:each_value, :store,:is_key? ... ].each {|m| 
remove_method(m) }

 
   public
   # build the methods
   def add(o)
       _implement_add(o,true)
   end
   ...
end

---
Note I am not advocating a rewrite of the Set class (if at all it
it should be a c-extension), it just makes a poster child example
for this idiom.

/Christoph