From: Dave <dlc-usenet@...>
Date: 2002-01-24T06:34:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie: simple data-type problem

On Wed, 23 Jan 2002 15:26:51 GMT, Mathieu Bouchard
<matju@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>
>On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Dave Carmean wrote:
>> What I though I'd try is to create a class which inherits from 
>> Fixnum, and do range checking in the initializer.  Doesn't work. 
>> Can't figure out how to initialize it, because Fixnum doesn't have 
>> a new() method.
>
>Classes are there to add functionality, not remove it. 
[snip]

>Do you want to manipulate integer values, or integer variables ?
>What does this class do apart from being a Fixnum or a holder thereof?

Actually, I'm not really sure whether or not it should be mutable.
All I need to do is perform the range check when I initialize it, and
after that just get it's value.  The time-related subclass will just
allow initialization and querying in terms of integer seconds, or
weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds.  They're going to be part 
of a DNS tool; I'm thinking now that they're good candidates for the
Singleton pattern.