From: Greg <email@...>
Date: 2007-05-09T10:10:08+09:00
Subject: Passing info to classes and methods

Newbie here. Two steps forward and one back. I'm working through Pine's 
book and maybe am jumping into areas beyond my knowledge. Some of you 
have seen an earlier version of this script. I'm trying to pass a value 
to a method in a class and the value isn't getting there.

<code>
#!/usr/bin/env ruby

class OrangeTree

  MSG_GROW = "Type \"year\" to grow your tree."
  MSG_PICK = "Type a number to pick some oranges. "
  EXIT_TXT = "Something went wrong."

  def initialize # we have one tree, does it need a name?
  	@heightInches = 0 # at year zero inches, work out feet and inches later
  	@age = 0
  	@fruit = 0
  	numToPick = 0
  	puts "Congratulations, you planted an orange tree. In a few years it 
will start bearing fruit. #{@age} " # Age only for debugging. Can take 
it out.
	 	
  	puts MSG_GROW
  end

	def ageOneYear
	# gain in height, , lose old fruit, grow more fruit each year (after 
say four years), die (at 30),
	 	# Height: #exponential, just for the heck of it.
		@age += 1
   	@heightInches = @heightInches + 1
	 	puts 'Height: ' + @heightInches.to_s
	 	if @age>3 : @orange = 100 end # Make a more sophisticated number of 
fruit method
#	 	puts "Got to ageOneYear. Age: #{@age}"
	 		case( @age )
				when (1..3) :  puts("Your #{@age} year old tree is too young to 
bear fruit yet. #{MSG_GROW}" )
#				when (4..29) : puts("It's Tuesday. Age: #{@age}. Place holder 
until get 1..3 working." )
        when (4..29) : puts("Your tree is #{@age} years old. 
#{MSG_PICK} or #{MSG_GROW}" )
			 	when (30) :    puts("Your tree was very fruitful, but it reached 
old age and died.")
			 	  break # maybe this will do it for killing the tree.
				else puts( " Something went wrong. #{EXIT_TXT}" )
			end
			puts # for blank line
	end # def ageOneYear
	
	def height
		# returns the height
	
	end
	
	def pick_an_orange numToPick
	 puts 'Got to pick_an_orange, now trying to get it working. numToPick: 
#{numToPick}' # debugging
	 if @fruit < numToPick then ("You tried to pick more oranges than were 
on the tree, so you picked #{@fruit} oranges. #{MSG_GROW} ")
	   # @fruit is negative, but I don't think there's a reason to reset it
   else
     @fruit = @fruit - numToPick
     puts ("You picked #{numToPick} oranges. You have #{@fruit} left. 
You can #{MSG_PICK} or #{MSG_GROW}" )
	   end
	 puts # for blank line
	end # pick_an_orange
	
end # class OrangeTree

# here we go
countLoop = 0
tree = OrangeTree.new # assume we need to initialize it. Does it need a name?

while countLoop < 31
    countLoop += 1
    puts "countLoop = #{countLoop}" # debugging
    user_input = gets.chomp
    if user_input == 'year'
       tree.ageOneYear
    elsif (1..100).include?(user_input.to_i) # need to convert string  
to integer
       tree.pick_an_orange user_input.to_i
    else puts('Don\'t be greedy, don\'t try to pick more than 100  oranges')
    end
end
</code>

I want to pass numToPick to pick_an_orange via 'tree.pick_an_orange 
user_input.to_i' but it's not happening.

Thanks for any ideas