From: Shadowfirebird <shadowfirebird@...>
Date: 2008-07-25T04:19:47+09:00
Subject: Re: circular 'require'

Pit, your idiom of putting require inside the class definition appears
to be considerably more robust than my half-baked notions.

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Pit Capitain <pit.capitain@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/7/24 Shadowfirebird <shadowfirebird@gmail.com>:
>> I apologise if I seem to be complaining.
>
> No need to apologize, everybody should have the right to complain. I
> thought that you either hadn't read or tried what I wrote in my first
> mail and therefore got the (in my view) false impression that require
> was broken. That's the reason for my maybe too harsh an answer, sorry.
>
>> Pit, I think your solution is interesting because it imbeds a class
>> definition inside a class.  Are there any downsides to that?
>
> Calling require inside a class definition or even inside a method
> doesn't embed the loaded constants (class names are constants too)
> into the "calling" class. It just changes the time when require is
> called. In your case, it would mean that require is called *after*
> creating the class Root, so that the required file can use that name.
>
> Sometimes I've seen code that requires certain files only if some
> method is called which needs the required functionality:
>
>  def method_with_special_requirements
>    require "rarely_used_library"
>    use_the_required_functionality
>  end
>
> This avoids the overhead of loading all the files everytime, even if
> the funcationality isn't used at all.
>
> Regards,
> Pit
>
>



-- 
Me, I imagine places that I have never seen / The colored lights in
fountains, blue and green / And I imagine places that I will never go
/ Behind these clouds that hang here dark and low
But it's there when I'm holding you / There when I'm sleeping too /
There when there's nothing left of me / Hanging out behind the
burned-out factories / Out of reach but leading me / Into the
beautiful sea