From: Albert Wagner <alwagner@...>
Date: 2002-07-07T12:31:47+09:00
Subject: Re: passing to objects at the bottom

On Saturday 06 July 2002 07:08 pm, Tom Sawyer wrote:
> well, i have an object called a Miter, and it has an array of Table.
> each Table has an array of Section. each Section has an array of Cell.
> and each Cell has an array of Element.
>
> so when i create a Miter, i pass in a @layout and a @prefix. the @layout
> gets parsed thus creating all those subobjects, but in so doing, each
> Element has a @name which needs to be prefixed with @prefix.
>

I am probably totally off base, but maybe it will trigger another way of 
thinking about your problem.  It appears that what you are trying to build is 
a tree structure, which usually lends itself to recursion.  But your original 
post mentioned globals meaning that it's really a namespace problem. By 
controlling the descent in Miter you keep all elements in the same namespace 
as @prefix.

class Miter
	def initialize(layout, prefix)
		@layout = layout
		@prefix = prefix
		@tables = Array.new
		buildTree
	end

	def buildTree
		parser(@layout).eachTable do |table|
			aTable = Array.new
			@tables.push(aTable)
			table.eachSection do |section|
				aSection = Array.new
				aTable.push(aSection)
				section.eachCell do |cell|
					aCell = Array.new
					aSection.push(aCell)
					cell.eachElement do |element|
						aCell.push(element)
						element.name = @prefix
					end
				end
			end
		end
		
	end
	
	def parser(aLayout)
		#answer a tree
	end
end