From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2012-01-26T12:35:12+09:00
Subject: Re: A little assistance please :)

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 03:43:59AM +0900, Dave Aronson wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 23:32, Chad Perrin <code@apotheon.net> wrote:
> 
> > Because self already has meaning in Ruby, when you try to define a class
> > like this:
> >
> > � �class self.Startup
> >
> > . . . Ruby is trying to call a Startup method on the Object object (no,
> > that repetition wasn't accidental -- there's an object called Object) and
> > use the return value of that method as the name of the class you're
> > trying to define.
> 
> So if I had a class with a method that returned a string, I could use
> that where the name is expected in a class declaration?  That doesn't
> seem right.  Tried it in irb, using both a class method (Foo.bar) and
> an instance method (foo.bar), and neither worked.

No, you couldn't do that either.  I'm explaining why you got the error
Ruby gave you, not giving you suggestions for how to name classes in
horrible programmatic ways.  If you *did* want to name a class in a
horrible programmatic way, you'd have to do something like:

    bar = "Hello" + "World"

    foo = <<EOF
    class #{bar}
      def initialize(name='World')
        @name = name
      end

      def greet
        return "Hello, #{@name}!"
      end
    end
    EOF

    eval(foo)

    hello = HelloWorld.new
    hello.greet

There may be easier ways to achieve the same end but, in general, don't
do it.  It'll probably just get your code in trouble.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]