From: Noah Easterly <noah.easterly@...>
Date: 2007-08-13T21:50:04+09:00
Subject: Re: RDoc vs. alias_method

On Aug 10, 9:14 pm, Eric Hodel <drbr...@segment7.net> wrote:
> On Aug 10, 2007, at 08:16, Noah Easterly wrote:
>
> > Whoever uses ToothCare can just call #gargle,#rinse,or #spit - they
> > don't have to worry about which implementation they're using.
> > Meanwhile, I can use #dentist_gargle and #hygenist_gargle to test and
> > compare.
>
> > This works pretty well, except when I run RDoc.  It's not smart enough
> > to figure out that the alias_method creates instance methods named
> > #gargle,#rinse, and #spit, and so they don't get documented.
>
> > Is there any easy and DRY way I can tell RDoc to document those
> > methods?
>
> Nope.  The Ruby parser doesn't understand the document-method stuff
> that the C parser has.
>
> .. So writing a patch and submitting it on the RDoc bug tracker is
> the most DRY way to do that.
>
> --
> Poor workers blame their tools. Good workers build better tools. The
> best workers get their tools to do the work for them. -- Syndicate Wars

Thanks, all.  As an immediate solution, I decided to make
DentistToothCare and HygenistToothCare sub-classes of ToothCare, and
overwrote ToothCare::new to return
one or the other, depending.

And if I get the time, I'll go for the longer term solution of
patching RDoc, since I use dynamic aliasing and code generation often
enough to make this an issue.