From: gabriele renzi <surrender_it@...1.vip.ukl.yahoo.com>
Date: 2004-04-01T02:44:21+09:00
Subject: Re: script loading question

il Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:24:54 GMT, Greg Brondo <greg@brondo.com> ha
scritto::

>I like working in the style of Java (one class per file) for some projects
>and I've emulated it for an email/webagent app.  What I'm wondering is if
>there is a *better* or *builtin* way to do this.  Here is my code:
>
>def loadAgents(path)
>    Dir[path + "*Agent.rb"].each { |agent|
>        agent = File.basename(agent)
>        if agent =~ /^((\w+)Agent)\.rb/
>            require $1
>            $agentFactory[$2.downcase] = $1
>        end
>    }
>end

I suppose this is reasonable, even if I'd simplify it using an agent/
directory, and I would it like this:

def loadAgents
 Dir['Agents/*.rb'].each do |agent|	
	load agent
end

def agent_create(name)
 Object::const_get(name).new
end


or at least I'd use a constant 
AgentFactory instead of an ugly dollar-var.



>I initialize '$agentFactory' to '{}' and add 'lib/' to $: before calling
>loadAgents().  Then I can 'object = agentFactory[request].new()'.  Also I
>can add agents just by writing the class in a new agent file in lib and
>restarting.
>
>I guess another question would be how can I reload 'lib/' without
>restarting?  Does 'load' replace class definitions (it seems require is a
>'one time thing')?

yes, require is a one time thing, and load works as expected:
>> load 'agen.rb'
=> true
>> Agent.new
=> #<Agent:0x27f6bc0 @a=1>
>> class Agent
>>  def initialize
>>   @b=2
>>  end
>> end
=> nil
>> Agent.new
=> #<Agent:0x27dbe60 @b=2>
>> load 'agen.rb'
=> true
>> Agent.new
=> #<Agent:0x27f68d8 @a=1>