Could you tell me if this is good meta programming style?

[Vincent Foley]

Hi everyone,

I finished playing yet another game of Chrono Trigger the other day,
and I thought I would look at how I could implement a simple Character
system in Ruby. I have the following initialize method, but I would
like to be sure it's not extremely bad style:

class Character
attr_accessor :strength, :magic, :defense, :magic_defense

def initialize(args = {})
args.each do |k, v|
instance_variable_set("@#{k}", v) if respond_to?(k)
end

methods.grep(/\w=$/).each { |setter|
getter = setter[0..-2]
if send(getter).nil?
send(setter, 0)
end
}
end
end

So, if I added a :critical_rate accessor, I wouldn't need to modify
anything else in the initialize method. Also, I don't want nil in any
attribute. Is this good style? Are there other (maybe better) ways to
accomplish this? Thank you.

 

[Ara.T.Howard]

Hi everyone,

I finished playing yet another game of Chrono Trigger the other day,
and I thought I would look at how I could implement a simple Character
system in Ruby. I have the following initialize method, but I would
like to be sure it's not extremely bad style:

class Character
attr_accessor :strength, :magic, :defense, :magic_defense

def initialize(args = {})
args.each do |k, v|
instance_variable_set("@#{k}", v) if respond_to?(k)
end

methods.grep(/\w=$/).each { |setter|
getter = setter[0..-2]
if send(getter).nil?
send(setter, 0)
end
}
end
end

So, if I added a :critical_rate accessor, I wouldn't need to modify
anything else in the initialize method. Also, I don't want nil in any
attribute. Is this good style? Are there other (maybe better) ways to
accomplish this? Thank you.

using my attributes module this would be

harp:~ > cat a.rb
require 'yaml'
require 'attributes'

class Character
attributes %w( strength magic defense magic_defense )

def initialize args = {}
args.each{|k,v| send k, v if respond_to? k}
reader_attributes.each{|at| send at, 0 unless send at}
end
end

c = Character::new 'strength' => 4, 'magic' => 2
y c

harp:~ > ruby a.rb
--- !ruby/object:Character
defense: 0
magic: 2
magic_defense: 0
strength: 4

this works because an attribute's reader delegates to the writer if called with
an argument (send at, 0).

not sure if this is 'better' but it's shorter ;-)

cheers.

-a
--
===============================================================================
| email :: ara [dot] t [dot] howard [at] noaa [dot] gov
| phone :: 303.497.6469
| renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting
| that they pass away. --aitken roshi
===============================================================================

 

[Ilmari Heikkinen]

la, 2005-04-30 kello 00:14, Vincent Foley kirjoitti:

Hi everyone,

I finished playing yet another game of Chrono Trigger the other day,
and I thought I would look at how I could implement a simple Character
system in Ruby. I have the following initialize method, but I would
like to be sure it's not extremely bad style:

class Character
attr_accessor :strength, :magic, :defense, :magic_defense

def initialize(args = {})
args.each do |k, v|
instance_variable_set("@#{k}", v) if respond_to?(k)
end

methods.grep(/\w=$/).each { |setter|
getter = setter[0..-2]
if send(getter).nil?
send(setter, 0)
end
}
end
end

So, if I added a :critical_rate accessor, I wouldn't need to modify
anything else in the initialize method. Also, I don't want nil in any
attribute. Is this good style? Are there other (maybe better) ways to
accomplish this? Thank you.

Hello,
I've been using a pretty similar class for my config needs, maybe the
biggest difference is that I'm using a default_config method to get the
default values and to make it work properly with subclassing.

I quite like the respond_to?-check you've got there, think I'll extend
mine by raising a name error if the setter doesn't exist.. or just use a
config block more often :|

Anyhow, here's the class:

class Configurable

def initialize(config = {}, &optional_config_block)
config = default_config.merge(config)
config.each{|k,v| instance_variable_set("@#{k}", v)}
optional_config_block.call(self) if block_given?
end

def default_config
{}
end

end

#subclassing:

class Foo < Configurable
attr_accessor :foo

def default_config
super.merge({
:foo => 10
})
end
end

Foo.new :foo => 5
Foo.new{|f| f.foo = 5 }

class FooBar < Foo
attr_accessor :bar

def default_config
super.merge({
:bar => 20
})
end
end

fb = FooBar.new
fb.foo #=> 10
fb.bar #=> 20