From: Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@...>
Date: 2007-08-09T12:05:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Can't get 'require' to work

On Aug 8, 2007, at 7:57 PM, Howard Fine wrote:

> I just started tinkering with Ruby.  From "The Poignant Ruby  
> Programmer"
> or whatever it's called (you know what I mean) I tried running the  
> small
> example but get an error.
> This is the first file called m2.rb:
>
> require '/usr/home/me.rb'
>
>  # Get evil idea and swap in code words
>  print "Enter your new idea: "
>  idea = gets
>  code_words.each do |real, code|
>    idea.gsub!( real, code )
>  end
>
>  # Save the jibberish to a new file
>  print "File encoded.  Please enter a name for this idea: "
>  idea_name = gets.strip
>  File::open( "idea-" + idea_name + ".txt", "w" ) do |f|
>    f << idea
>  end
>
> And this is me.rb:
>
> code_words = {
>    'starmonkeys' => 'Phil and Pete, those prickly chancellors of  
> the New
> Reich',
>    'catapult' => 'chucky go-go', 'firebomb' => 'Heat-Assisted Living',
>    'Nigeria' => "Ny and Jerry's Dry Cleaning (with Donuts)",
>    'Put the kabosh on' => 'Put the cable box on'
>  }
>
> When I do: ruby me2.rb and enter any of the code_words above, I get:
>
>  me2.rb:6: undefined local variable or method `code_words' for
> main:Object (NameError)

require is working fine. What you have is a scoping problem. The  
following shows a couple of ways to fix it.

<code -- me.rb>
$code_words = {
    'starmonkeys' => 'Phil and Pete, those prickly chancellors of the  
NewReich',
    'catapult' => 'chucky go-go', 'firebomb' => 'Heat-Assisted Living',
    'Nigeria' => "Ny and Jerry's Dry Cleaning (with Donuts)",
    'Put the kabosh on' => 'Put the cable box on'
}

CODE_WORDS = {
    'starmonkeys' => 'Phil and Pete, those prickly chancellors of the  
NewReich',
    'catapult' => 'chucky go-go', 'firebomb' => 'Heat-Assisted Living',
    'Nigeria' => "Ny and Jerry's Dry Cleaning (with Donuts)",
    'Put the kabosh on' => 'Put the cable box on'
}
</code?>

<code -- me.rb>
require "/Users/mg/Desktop/me" # I put it in a different place, but  
makes no difference

# global variable
$code_words # => {"Nigeria"=>"Ny and Jerry's Dry Cleaning (with  
Donuts)", "firebomb"=>"Heat-Assisted Living", "catapult"=>"chucky go- 
go", "Put the kabosh on"=>"Put the cable box on",  
"starmonkeys"=>"Phil and Pete, those prickly chancellors of the  
NewReich"}

# constant -- note leading ::
::CODE_WORDS # => {"Nigeria"=>"Ny and Jerry's Dry Cleaning (with  
Donuts)", "firebomb"=>"Heat-Assisted Living", "catapult"=>"chucky go- 
go", "Put the kabosh on"=>"Put the cable box on",  
"starmonkeys"=>"Phil and Pete, those prickly chancellors of the  
NewReich"}
</code?>

Regards, Morton