From: Jan Svitok <jan.svitok@...>
Date: 2007-01-11T02:21:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Dynamically load methods from external source

On 1/10/07, Daniel Shackelford <dshackel@arbor.edu> wrote:
> I know this sounds like it could be a very bad thing to do, but I was
> wondering if there is a way to load methods into an already running app
> from an external source (database/file).  I am building an app that
> would load needed code snippets for a given task, but each time it runs
> it will not need all the snippets, just certain ones.  I know that I can
> store the code as text in the database/file, but will I have to execute
> it externally (via system 'ruby file.rb arg1 arg2'), or can I load and
> execute it internally (possibly in a separate thread)?  I can think of
> all sorts of reasons why to NOT do this, but still, there is curiosity
> isn't there..
>
> I am thinking that somehow Rails does something like this with it's
> controllers, but heck, that is a lot of code to sort through.

use Kernel#eval for loading* code from string,
load/require to load code from file.
(require will load just once, load will more times)

loading = load and execute