From: anne001 <anne@...>
Date: 2005-11-26T09:32:27+09:00
Subject: How do two objects communicate?

I wrote a small program the procedural way, now I would like to write
one the OOP way, but
I am blocking on the matter of communication.

One way to communicate is to have a class variable, ie a global to the
class.

So lets say I define a class with two class variables and a storage
array
class dataClass
     def initialize
        @@Arr=array read from file, constant
        @@ind=0
        @storeAr=[]
     end
end

I can create two objects (two instances)
datainst=dataClass.new
infoinst=dataClass.new

As I understand it the objects datainst and infoinst both have access
to @@Arr and @@ind,
and each have their own array.

I can get my program rolling by calling a method, say datainst.lookforX
class dataClass
    def lookforX
        look for X in @@arr[@@ind]
        if X not found
            increase @@ind
            Self.lookforX
        else X is found
            Send a message to other object   ?????  HOW DO I DO THAT?
            break out of all recursions
        end
    end
end

The object datainst can call itself with Self I believe but how does
object datainst tell infoinst
to do something? Methods are written in a class, and when one writes a
class, instances don't yet exist.

The examples in my programming ruby always seem to be "me" sending a
"message" to an object, not an object talking to another object? How
can an object talk to another object?
Ruby and OOP beginner missing something