From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2006-06-12T05:29:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Is there a better way...

James McCarthy wrote:
> Is there an neater way to achieve this without using that clunky eval 
> and inline substitution?
> 
>   def test_confirmation(object, test_attribute, test_values = {}, 
> attributes = {})
>     instance = eval("#{object}.new(attributes)")

If object is supposed to be a class:

                 object.send(:new, attributes)

If object is a string that names a class you will have to use const_get
to avoid eval. Check the archives for a good way to do that using inject.

>     test_values.each do |value|
>       instance.send("#{test_attribute}=", value)
>       instance.send("#{test_attribute}_confirmation=", value)

AFAIK there is no better way to call setter methods, if the name of the
method is a parameter. If you only need to set the instance vars, you
can use #instance_variable_set, but that's not the same thing as calling
the accessor method.

HTH.

-- 
      vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407