From: "Kurt M. Dresner" <kdresner@...>
Date: 2003-07-15T06:11:53+09:00
Subject: Ruby CGI questions

I'm trying to make a game (or at least something, so I can learn) with
Ruby CGI.  I'm having a really hard time with sessions.  I have some
variables that I want to save, but they are not strings.  They are
classes that I have defined.  Is there any way to save them with a
session without them just being converted to strings and then being read
back in as strings when I load the session up?  Here's what I have:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby

require "cgi"
require "cgi/session"
require "setdeck"
require "set"
require "setcollection"
require "setboard"

cgi = CGI.new("html4")
sess = CGI::Session.new( cgi, "session_key" => "crappyset",
                         "session_id" => "1234", #cgi.remote_addr,
                         "prefix" => "setgame.",
                         "tmpdir" => "/tmp")

if sess["deck"].nil?
  deck = SetDeck.new
  sets = SetCollection.new
  board = SetBoard.new(12)
  deck.shuffle!
else
  deck = sess["deck"]
  sets = sess["sets"]
  board = sess["board"]
end

board.place(deck.dealn(board.holes.size))

if cgi.has_key?('selections')
  tomark = cgi['selections'][0].split(',').collect { |x| x.to_i }
  tomark.each do |marked|
    board.select(marked)
  end
end

sess["deck"] = deck
sess["sets"] = sets
sess["board"] = board
sess.update



cgi.out{
  cgi.html {
    cgi.head {"\n" + cgi.title {"What a crappy implementation of set!"}}
  +
   cgi.body {"\n" + cgi.pre{board.to_s} +
   cgi.br +
   cgi.form {
        cgi.textarea("selections") +
   cgi.br +
   cgi.submit("Check them!")
      }
    }
  }
}


I am just getting started with this, but I'm trying to learn how
sessions work and having a hell of a time.  I need to make sure that
when deck, sets, and board are loaded up, they are loaded as a SetDeck,
a SetCollection, and a SetBoard, respectively.  Is there any way to do
this without using Marshal?  And if I need to use Marshal, how would I
do that with sessions?

-Kurt