Catch all method... e.g perl's autoload

ruby-talk
1

Hey all,

Does ruby have a catchall method similar to perl's autoload?

Thanks in advance!
Tim

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
   - Dr. Seuss

2

Does this sound right?

$ ri Kernel#method_missing
-------------------------------------------------- Kernel#method_missing
      obj.method_missing(symbol [, *args] ) => result

···

On Sep 2, 2006, at 10:02 AM, Tim McIntyre wrote:

Does ruby have a catchall method similar to perl's autoload?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Invoked by Ruby when obj is sent a message it cannot handle.
      symbol is the symbol for the method called, and args are any
      arguments that were passed to it. By default, the interpreter
      raises an error when this method is called. However, it is
      possible to override the method to provide more dynamic behavior.
      The example below creates a class Roman, which responds to methods
      with names consisting of roman numerals, returning the
      corresponding integer values.

         class Roman
           def romanToInt(str)
             # ...
           end
           def method_missing(methId)
             str = methId.id2name
             romanToInt(str)
           end
         end

         r = Roman.new
         r.iv #=> 4
         r.xxiii #=> 23
         r.mm #=> 2000

--
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://blog.segment7.net
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

http://trackmap.robotcoop.com

3

Yep, thats what I was looking for. Thanks Eric!

still have some ActiveRecord idiosyncrasies holding up what I want to do here but thats the gist.

Thanks again!
Tim

···

On Sep 2, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Eric Hodel wrote:

On Sep 2, 2006, at 10:02 AM, Tim McIntyre wrote:

Does ruby have a catchall method similar to perl's autoload?

Does this sound right?

$ ri Kernel#method_missing
-------------------------------------------------- Kernel#method_missing
     obj.method_missing(symbol [, *args] ) => result
------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Invoked by Ruby when obj is sent a message it cannot handle.
     symbol is the symbol for the method called, and args are any
     arguments that were passed to it. By default, the interpreter
     raises an error when this method is called. However, it is
     possible to override the method to provide more dynamic behavior.
     The example below creates a class Roman, which responds to methods
     with names consisting of roman numerals, returning the
     corresponding integer values.

        class Roman
          def romanToInt(str)
            # ...
          end
          def method_missing(methId)
            str = methId.id2name
            romanToInt(str)
          end
        end

        r = Roman.new
        r.iv #=> 4
        r.xxiii #=> 23
        r.mm #=> 2000

--
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://blog.segment7.net
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

http://trackmap.robotcoop.com

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
   - Dr. Seuss