From: Jeremy <thinker5555@...>
Date: 2003-03-26T11:05:44+09:00
Subject: Conditionally make a method private?

Hello again!

I've googled this one, as well as looking in Pickaxe and Ruby Way, and I
can't seem to find out anything about this.  What I want to do is create a
class that, when instanced, depending on the argument given to .new, hides
some methods or others.  For example:

class Hider
    def initialize(val)
        private_class_method :method1 if val
        private_class_method :method2 if not val
    end

    def method1
        #...
    end

    def method2
        #...
    end
end

ahider = Hider.new(true)

This spits back out to me:

3:in `initialize': undefined method `private_class_method' for
#<Hider:0x401c157c> (NameError)
        from test.rb:16:in `new'
        from test.rb:16

What I want to happen is when I issue "Hider.new(true)", I want it to make
it so that method1 is private.  Likewise, when I do "Hider.new(false)", I
want it to make method2 private.

I've tried putting the private_class_method in other seperate methods, I've
tried just using "private :method2" and the like, but they all give me a
similar response.  I'm guessing that private and private_class_method can't
be inside of other methods.

Is conditional hiding of methods like I want to do even possible?

Any insight is appreciated,
Jeremy