Processing code file inline

[Greg Willits]

I need to have a script load a file and execute that file as if it was
code inline to the script. The file being loaded is not a class, not a
module. It is code that has been dynamically written by another process.

Example:

# file to load
index_33dob.store("NatVir20000515".to_sym, 67)
index_33dob.store("MicSwa19920210".to_sym, 85)
index_33dob.store("AshSmi19950827".to_sym, 19)
index_33dob.store("IvaCov20021108".to_sym, 45)
index_33dob.store("CatOrt19950128".to_sym, 83)

# contrived script to load the file and process it
timer_start = Time.new
index_33dob = {}
include "33dob_entries.rb" # <<--- WHAT DO HERE ?
timer_stop = Time.new
puts "#{timer_stop - timer_start}"
p index_33dob


In other languages I have used, the command include would be used to
integrate the 33dob_entries.rb file as inline code, but neither Ruby's
include nor require can be used to do this AFAICT.

How would I do this with Ruby ?

(I am writing some data structures to disk as code instead of using
Marshal because it is actually much much faster than reconstituing the
data via Marshal, and that re-loading performance is critical to the
app).

thx

-- gw

 

[Greg Willits]

Dang, thought of one more thing right after I sent this and it worked.

I needed to use @index_33dob instead of index_33dob in order to have the
var from the loaded file available to the script.

-- gw

 

[Farrel Lifson]

# contrived script to load the file and process it
timer_start = Time.new
index_33dob = {}
include "33dob_entries.rb" # <<--- WHAT DO HERE ?
timer_stop = Time.new
puts "#{timer_stop - timer_start}"
p index_33dob

Read the file into a string, and then use Kernel#eval. Just a warning
that this can be very unsafe if you don't trust the processes
generating the code.

Regards,
Farrel