From: Andrew Johnson <ajohnson@...>
Date: 2006-03-25T11:58:52+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Article: An Exercise in Metaprogramming with Ruby

Of course, un-pedagogically, it could be compressed a tad:

  class DataRecord

    def self.make(file_name)
      header = File.open(file_name){|f|f.gets}.split(/,/)
      struct = File.basename(file_name,'.txt').capitalize
      record = Struct.new(struct, *header)

      class<<record;self;end.send :define_method, :read do
        File.open(file_name) do |f|
          f.gets
          f.inject([]){|a,l| a << record.new(*eval("[#{l}]")) }
        end
      end

      record
    end

  end

  data = DataRecord.make('people.txt')
  list = data.read # or: Struct::People.read
  person = list[2]
  puts person.name
  if person.age < 18
    puts "under 18"
  else 
    puts "over 18"
  end
  puts "Weight is: %.2f kg" % kg = person.weight / 2.2 

cheers,
andrew

-- 
Andrew L. Johnson   http://www.siaris.net/
      What have you done to the cat? It looks half-dead.
          -- Schroedinger's wife