From: "Victor \"Zverok\" Shepelev" <vshepelev@...>
Date: 2006-11-23T10:04:03+09:00
Subject: Rubyish inst.var initializations

Hi all.

I have some huge class with aspects of functionality spreaded in several
source files.

And in some of those aspects there is the same picture:
---
class MyClass
  def push_something(obj)
    @something_list ||= []
    @something_list << obj
  end

  def use_something(i)
    (@something_list ||= [])[i]
  end
end
---

Then I note (through profiler) various push_XXX spend too much time in
checking is @XXX_list initialized. Then I change it:

---
class MyClass
  alias :initialize_without_something :initialize

  def initialize(*arg)
    initialize_without_something(*arg)
    @something_list = []
  end

  def push_something(obj)
    @something_list << obj
  end

  def use_something(i)
    @something_list[i]
  end
end
---

Now push_XXX and use_XXX work cleaner and faster, but all those initialize
aliases (now I have 5 or 6) don't seem to be very elegant.

Is there better solution?

(to be clear, all those push_XXX are NOT similar - some of them push object
to hashes, others to arrays, params count differ and so on - so, they can't
be generated at once through metaprogramming)

Thanks.

V.