From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2007-01-20T05:58:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Declaring instance variables dynamically

On Jan 19, 2007, at 2:42 PM, gwtmp01@mac.com wrote:

>
> On Jan 19, 2007, at 3:05 PM, Alex Schearer wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the feedback.  I am in fact trying to do what openstrtuct
>> allows despite any confusing language I might have employed.  I was
>> curious whether there was any way to do so without employing a hash
>> table -- that isn't to say that PHP doesn't employ a hash table  
>> with its
>> objects.  Now I know, and let me just also say thank you for the  
>> lengthy
>> response.  I invariably find it more useful when more experienced
>> members of the community explain/tell me something than when they  
>> point
>> me to a reference document, though that is still more useful than no
>> response at all.
>
> Well, it is certainly possible to roll your own class that
> uses instance variables instead of the hash table.  You can use
> method_missing to capture calls to object.x and object.x= and then
> set or get the matching instance variables.
>
> I'll bet this has been done many times before.  Maybe in facets?   
> Trans?

It's called OpenStruct and it is included in Ruby's standard library.

James Edward Gray II