From: Dave Hatton <rubylist@...>
Date: 2007-01-31T02:28:05+09:00
Subject: Correct way to process a file in Ruby?

Hi

What is the correct way to code the following in Ruby?

open file
read field from file
determine from field the type of file
case file type in
   type 1) do this (lots of stuff)
   type 2) do that (even more stuff)
   type 3) do something else (you get the picture)
        *) error
esac
close file

I presently have this coded as one big method but the number of cases
are large and the complexity of the processing increasing. This is going
to end up a hell of a larger method.

I then thought about breaking it into a number of methods but that
resulted in opening and closing the file a number of times (in each
method) which feels bad

Would it be right to use a global variable as a file descriptor and open
the file in one method which returns a fd and then having a number of
methods processing using the fd and then finally having a method that
closes the file?

Sorry if I'm seem to be grasping for the correct Ruby language to
express this - I'm very new to Ruby coming from a C and shell
background.

Daveh

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