From: Patrick Hurley <phurley@...>
Date: 2006-04-14T02:10:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Equivalent of Java static code block in Ruby?

On 4/13/06, azrael@cream.org <azrael@cream.org> wrote:
> >
> > I think all you would do by adding another division here, is confuse
> > matters.  Currently I think it's pretty clear.
> >
>
> I think I agree with you. One shouldn't do stuff simply because that's
> the way Java does it. If anything, quite the opposite.
>
> Although, it's not true that all code in a class is executed at class
> load time. Most of the code typically will only be called on
> instantiation of an object, and sometimes it's helpful not to mix the
> two up too thoroughly.
>
> Martin
>
>

Actually the code in those method bodies is executed -- that is what
defines the methods.

Think about this (very silly) sample code:

class Foo

  if (Time.now.to_i % 2).zero?
    def bar
      puts "Even time"
    end
  else
    def bar
      puts "Odd time"
    end
  end
end

f = Foo.new
f.bar

Note that it does not matter when you call bar, but when the class is loaded...

pth