From: Matt Mencel <MR-Mencel@...>
Date: 2012-01-10T03:26:19+09:00
Subject: Class instance variable question

Hi,

I have this class (below) that takes a deeply nested hash and returns back a new hash without all the nesting.  The problem I'm having is that it seems to be that @all_values is not empty if I call it a second time from my program.  First time is fine, but the next time I use get_all_values_nested, @all_values still has the results in it from the first time it was used.

Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?  I just want @path and @all_values to be empty each time I use the get_all_values_nested function.

Thanks,
Matt




class Tools
  
  @path = []
  @all_values = {}
   
  def self.get_all_values_nested(nested_hash={}) 
    puts "ALL VALS: #{@all_values}"
    nested_hash.each_pair do |k,v|
      @path << k
      case v
        when Array, DateTime, FalseClass, Fixnum, NilClass, String, TrueClass then 
          @all_values.merge!({"#{@path.join(".")}" => "#{v}"}) 
          @path.pop
        when Hash then get_all_values_nested(v)
        else raise ArgumentError, "Unhandled type #{v.class}"
      end
    end
    @path.pop

    return @all_values
  end
  
end