From: Lyle Johnson <lyle@...>
Date: 2003-06-01T08:19:05+09:00
Subject: Re: newbie questions

Steven Ketcham wrote:

> 5/31/2003 2:26:03 PM, Jim Freeze <jim@freeze.org> wrote:
> 
>>BTW, after I became rubyized, I found myself not needing 
>>solutions that were based in C/C++, and for this particular
>>case, changed my design to use symbols.
> 
> Could you elaborate on this a little more?

If you're just using an enumerated type to differentiate between 
different mutually exclusive options and don't care what their numeric 
values are -- as appears to be the case in your example -- Ruby symbols 
(a.k.a. "interned" strings or atoms) are a nice alternative:

     class TransferSummary
       def doSummary
         # site list
         doSql (getSiteListSQL(), :SiteList)

         # transfer error count
         doSql (getTransferErrorCountSQL(), :TransferErrorCount)

         # baud rate average
         doSql (getTransferBaudRateAverageSQL(), :BaudRateAverage)

         # transfer count
         doSql (getTransferCountSQL(), :TransferCount)
       end

       def doSql(sqlStmt, whichFunction)
         database = DatabaseFunctions.new
         database.doSql( sqlStmt ) do |dataset|
           row.each_with_name do |siteKey, value|
             case whichFunction
               when :SiteList
                 transferSummaryCountHolder =
                   TransCountHolder.new(siteKey, value)
                 @countsContainer[:SiteKey] = transferSummaryCountHolder

               when :TransferErrorCount
                 @countsContainer[siteKey].errors = value

               when :BaudRateAverage
                 @countsContainer[siteKey].baudAverage = value

               when :TransferCount
                 @countsContainer[siteKey].tranfersCounted = value
             end
           end
         end
         database.finish
       end
     end

Hope this helps,

Lyle