From: "Dan Stevens (IAmAI)" <dan.stevens.iamai@...>
Date: 2007-06-30T02:11:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Issue related to class initialization and irb

> irb(main):004:0> a = Test.new
> => #<Test:0x100daec>

> irb(main):013:0> a
> => #<Test:8416630>

Does anyone know why the value returned by Object#object_id is
different to the value returned by the 'new' method? Is one hex and
the other is not?


On 29/06/07, Chris Shea <cmshea@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 29, 10:44 am, darren kirby <bulli...@badcomputer.org> wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > My class is a library that allows users to read information/tags etc from Flac
> > files.
> >
> > When the class is initialized in irb the content of every single instance
> > variable is dumped to the console. This library parses a lot of data from
> > various blocks, and has many data structures to hold it all. As such, this
> > output can contain as much as two screens worth. Some of this data is
> > non-readable and is for 'top-secret internal use only'. That is, it isn't
> > secret, but it has no value or use to the user directly ;).
> >
> > Anyway, I would really like to clean up this output and have irb print only
> > eg:
> >
> > =>  #<FlacInfo:0x6f97cca4>
> >
> > Or perhaps the above with a brief enumeration of the blocks found and their
> > sizes and/or offsets. To this end I tried defining the class' to_s method,
> > and modifying the initialize method's return value. Neither had an effect.
> > How might I accomplish this?
> >
> > Thanks for consideration,
> > -d
> > --
> > darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 ::http://badcomputer.org
> > "...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
> > - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972
>
> What you want to do is redefine the inspect method.
>
> irb(main):001:0> class Test
> irb(main):002:1> attr_accessor :foo, :bar
> irb(main):003:1> end
> => nil
> irb(main):004:0> a = Test.new
> => #<Test:0x100daec>
> irb(main):005:0> a.foo = 42
> => 42
> irb(main):006:0> a.bar = "a place to buy drinks"
> => "a place to buy drinks"
> irb(main):007:0> a
> => #<Test:0x100daec @bar="a place to buy drinks", @foo=42>
> irb(main):008:0> class Test
> irb(main):009:1> def inspect
> irb(main):010:2> "#<Test:#{self.object_id}>"
> irb(main):011:2> end
> irb(main):012:1> end
> => nil
> irb(main):013:0> a
> => #<Test:8416630>
>
> HTH,
> Chris
>
>
>