From: Scott Thompson <easco@...>
Date: 2003-08-13T02:22:07+09:00
Subject: common constructor idioms

In C++ one often declares a constructor that accepts another instance 
of this class.  For those familiar with C++ syntax I'm talking about:

class MyClass {
	/* other interesting stuff in this class deleted */

	/* Copy constructor */
	MyClass(const MyClass &objectToCopy);
};

I guess you could do something similar in Ruby like this:

class MyClass
	def initialize(x)
		if x.class == MyClass then
			#some code to duplicate stuff in x
		else
			#potentially other initialization mechanisms here
		end
	end
end


Though there are bound to be differing opinions on the subject (and I 
have no desire to start a flame war so please be kind) I was curious to 
know is a popular idiom in Ruby code or not?  More to the point, would 
someone who was using an Ruby extension reasonably assume that this 
initialization mechanism was included?

Scott