From: HiddenBek <scott.wadden@...>
Date: 2007-12-31T03:40:04+09:00
Subject: Re: newbie question - how to use multiple source files

The second file must require the first:

require 'first_class_file'

This would generally go at the top of the file, but anywhere before
FirstClassFile is referenced is fine.  The require method looks at
each path in the $LOAD_PATH global variable, then attempts to find a
Ruby source file or C extension that matches the name you pass in.

Check out http://www.rubycentral.com/pickaxe/tut_modules.html#S4 for
more details.

In your example, the public and super calls are unnecessary.  Public
is the default visibility, and, as both of your classes inherit from
Object, there's no need to call the initializer of the superclass.
It's also quite common to have multiple Ruby classes in the same
source file.  Ruby classes are often small, and many people find it
easier to manage a small handful of larger files than dozens of tiny
ones.

On Dec 30, 1:36 pm, Ben Hoffmann <benss...@skypoint.com> wrote:
> I'm coming from Java, and am trying to understand how to break upo code
> into more than one file.  So in this example, I have one class in the
> first file, another in the second file, and I want to create an object
> from the first class, but from the second file.  Environment - Aptana on
> XP machine.  See below:
>
> 1)  First file named     first_class_file.rb:
>
> class FirstClassFile
>
>   public
>
>   def initialize
>     super
>     puts "Hello from First Class"
>   end
> end
>
> my1stObject = FirstClassFile.new
>
> 2)  Second file named     second_class_file.rb:
>
> class SecondClassFile
>
>   def initialize
>     super
>     puts "Hello from Second Class"
>   end
> end
>
> my2ndObject = SecondClassFile.new
>
> my3rdObject = FirstClassFile.new
>
> 3) Console result of running second file:
>
> Hello from Second Class
> second_class_file.rb:11: uninitialized constant FirstClassFile (NameError)
>
> Question - What obvious thing am I doing wrong?
> Thanks!
>  - Ben