[ruby-talk:21748] Allowing user code within a program

I've got a testing application where I use dRuby to distribute testcases 
to idle machines on a network.  Sometimes the testcases already exist, but 
in other cases, for added flexibility,  I want to allow for users to 
generate testcases programatically with Ruby code.

I have a class called Pool which in the constructor makes two lists: 1) a 
list of files in the Pool directory which have extensions for existing 
testcases (.rfl in this case) and 2) a list of files with the extenstion 
..rbgen which contain user code which is used to generate testcases.  Pool 
also has a 'each' iterator method which iterates through the testcases in 
each list.  In the first list, each testcase is yield'ed.  In the  
second list, each rbgen file is first load'ed - the rbgen file must 
contain a module function called: TCGen.generate - after the rbgen 
is load'ed, the TCGen.generate function is called.  Here's the code (I've 
not included the TestCase class for brevity):

#pool.rb Pool - 
# initialize makes two lists: 1) a list of files with extenstion .rfl
# 2) a list of files with extenstion .rbgen
# .rbgen files are ruby files which generate testcases.  This allows
# 'server-side' flows which can generate testcases 
class Pool 
   def initialize(name)
      @name = name #the name of the pool
      #find the list of .rfl files in the pool
      @rflList = Dir["#@name/*.rfl"]
      #look for rbgen files
      @rbgenList = Dir["#@name/*.rbgen"]
   end #initialize

   def each
      @rflList.each {|x| 
         name = File.basename(x,".rfl")
         location = File.dirname(x)
         yield TestCase.new(name,location) 
      }
      @rbgenList.each {|rbgen|
         name = File.basename(rbgen,".rbgen")
         puts "name is : #{name}"
         puts "load #{rbgen}"
         load "#{rbgen}"
         TCGen.generate {|tc| yield tc }
      }
   end #each
end

#how to use it:
if $0 =~ __FILE__
   pool = Pool.new("pool") #look in a subdir called 'pool'
   pool.each { |testcase| puts "#{testcase}"
      #send testcase to next available machine
   }
end
#end pool.rb


Here's an example of an .rbgen file:

#this is aa.rbgen which resides in the subdir 'pool'
require "ftools"
require "testcase"

module TCGen
   def TCGen.generate
     #a contrived example:
     list = Dir["*.*"] 
     list.each {|file|
        name = File.basename(file)
        location = File.dirname(file)
        File.copy(file,"/home/phil/ruby_stuff/testcases")
        yield TestCase.new(name,location) 
     }
   end
end #module TCGen

In this case the TCGen.generate function just copies files in the 
current directory to a specific 
location, but a more realistic TCGen.generate function would actually 
produce a set of files to be run as testcases - after each testcase is 
'generated' the testcase is yield'ed.

Anyway, if you're still with me...  I'm wondering if this method of 
'load'ing a file and then calling a function defined in that 
external file is the best way of doing this - any opinions, other ideas?

Phil