From: Wilbert Berendsen <wilbert@...>
Date: 2003-01-26T06:18:09+09:00
Subject: datafiles as Ruby source musings

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Hi,

I would like to have a Ruby program read some data- or descriptionfiles which 
are just Ruby code. ( ofcourse I'll look at security, etc. ), but I found 
some caveats:

1.

snippet of datafile e.g.:
- -----------------------
VAR=true
OTHERVAR=false
YETANOTHER=true
- ---------etc.------------


module Data
	load "datafile"
end

However, the constants loaded are not defined in the scope of the module, but 
in the global space. I must use:
module Data
	eval File.new ("datafile").read
end

or put the module definition line in the datafile as well. Which, both are not 
very elegant.

2.

Other files which my app will need, must contain Makefile-like structures.
I would rather just "load" the file, and having the Ruby interpreter take care 
of the parsing (example:)

ALSA && (
	depend "audio/alsa-driver" { |p| p.version >= 0.9 }
	configure << "--enable-alsa"
)

where 'depend' and 'configure' are just methods in the current instance, and 
'ALSA' a constant defined in a module that got included. But again using 
'obj.instance_eval File.new("file").read' is the only thing I can think of.

Does anybody have a nice hint or better trick to create data- or config files 
readable with Ruby without having to write parsers in ruby?

thanks,
Wilbert

- -- 
Wilbert Berendsen (http://www.xs4all.nl/~wbsoft/)
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
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