From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2006-09-13T02:59:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Reflection and files

MonkeeSage wrote:
> Gavin Kistner wrote:
>> Well, here's one terrible idea. (It's 'terrible' because it's brittle,
>> and only works if no other files defining new classes have been defined,
>> and will break if a new Ruby release defines a new class.)
> 
> How about:
> 
> def get_class_from_file(file)
>   consts = Object.constants
>   require file
>   return (Object.constants - consts)[0]
> end
> 
> p get_class_from_file('/path/to/some_file.rb')

Doesn't work if file requires some other file (such as a ruby std lib 
file). Also, not thread safe. Also, the class may be defined as

class Foo::Bar
end

and it will not show up in Object.constants.

Also, there might be other constants:

K=1
class Foo; end

It's a hard problem in ruby...

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