From: Christopher Swasey <christopher.swasey@...>
Date: 2008-03-04T09:45:00+09:00
Subject: Re: String to Object name?

On 3/3/08, Mariko C. <lessthaneloquent@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'd like to change a string, for example, "something" and turn it into
>  an object reference. For example:
>
>  I have string "something," now I'd like to take that and turn it into
>
>  something = "some other string"
>
>  Is this possible? Thanks in advance for any help.

If I understand you properly, you have the name of a variable in a
string, and you want to use that string to fetch the actual variable
by that name.

What you want is Object#instance_variable_get:
       @a = "@b"
       @b = ["this is a test"]
       instance_variable_get(@a)
       => ["this is a test"]

Note that the @ is important. You can always prepend it as needed:
       instance_variable_get("@" + @a)

Christopher