From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2001-04-30T00:53:39+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:14409] Re: autoload

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:14396] autoload"
    on 01/04/29, Avi Bryant <avi@cr798598-a.crdva1.bc.wave.home.com> writes:

|Why does autoload only work for toplevel constants?

Because it's kinda hard to handle nested constants like "Foo::Bar"
from C level.  Unlike Perl, "Foo::Bar" is not a single package name.
It retrieve the value of constant Foo, then the value of constant Bar
defined within Foo (assuming Foo is a class or module).  Constant
"Foo" might not be a class nor module, might not be defined yet, etc.

One alternative possibilitiy is moving autoload method from toplevel
to modules, e.g:

  class Foo
    # load foo/bar when accessing Bar within Foo
    autoload "Bar", "foo/bar.rb"
  end

							matz.