Rails - Mar 2007 - Is there a way to store items in a hash, yet refer to them as class methods?

Hi,

Many of the view helpers require an object with accessor methods as
parameters.

There are times however, when I want to store a collection of
variables in a hash,
and yet be able to use these helpers.

Look at this example:
<%= text_area "person", "description" %>
This works great for the case where I have a "person" object, with a
"description" attribute.
But what if I need to store the data in a hash, like this:
   person[''description'']
I don''t want to write a wrapper function to get all the hash values.
I would like to
use a gem or other builtin mechanism to be able to refer to
person.description -or-
person[''description'']
interchangeably.

Is there a way to store variables in a collection (like a hash), and
use the keys of the
hash as accessor names in view helpers?  Has anyone written one
already?

Thanks,

David


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Hi David,

dtrusty-U6r7FCv0h4VBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org wrote:
> Is there a way to store variables in a collection 
> (like a hash), and use the keys of the hash as 
> accessor names in view helpers?  
Cool idea.

Best regards,
Bill


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This is dead simple and read-only, but how ''bout something like:

class HashyTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
  def test_hashy_things
    hash = HashWithIndifferentAccess.new

    hash["monkeys"] = "These are monkeys."
    hash["monkeys!"] = "Yes, monkeys!"
    hash[:"monkeys?"] = "Do you like monkeys too?"

    def hash.method_missing(sym, *args)
      self[sym]
    end

    assert_equal(hash["monkeys"], hash.monkeys)
    assert_equal(hash["monkeys!"], hash.monkeys!)
    assert_equal(hash[:"monkeys?"], hash.monkeys?)
  end
end


~ j.

On 3/30/07, Bill Walton
<bill.walton-xwVYE8SWAR3R7s880joybQ@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
>
> Hi David,
>
> dtrusty-U6r7FCv0h4VBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org wrote:
>
> > Is there a way to store variables in a collection
> > (like a hash), and use the keys of the hash as
> > accessor names in view helpers?
>
> Cool idea.
>
> Best regards,
> Bill
>
>
> >
>
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Hm. Might want to make this just slightly less confusing for methods
that don''t map to a key:

    def hash.method_missing(sym, *args)
      include? sym and return self[sym]
      super
    end


~ j.


On 3/30/07, John Barnette
<jbarnette-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> This is dead simple and read-only, but how ''bout something like:
>
> class HashyTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
>   def test_hashy_things
>     hash = HashWithIndifferentAccess.new
>
>     hash["monkeys"] = "These are monkeys."
>     hash["monkeys!"] = "Yes, monkeys!"
>     hash[:"monkeys?"] = "Do you like monkeys too?"
>
>     def hash.method_missing(sym, *args)
>       self[sym]
>     end
>
>     assert_equal(hash["monkeys"], hash.monkeys)
>     assert_equal(hash["monkeys!"], hash.monkeys!)
>     assert_equal(hash[:"monkeys?"], hash.monkeys?)
>   end
> end
>
>
> ~ j.
>
> On 3/30/07, Bill Walton
<bill.walton-xwVYE8SWAR3R7s880joybQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi David,
> >
> > dtrusty-U6r7FCv0h4VBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org wrote:
> >
> > > Is there a way to store variables in a collection
> > > (like a hash), and use the keys of the hash as
> > > accessor names in view helpers?
> >
> > Cool idea.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Bill
> >
> >
> > > >
> >
>
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John Barnette wrote:
>    def hash.method_missing(sym, *args)
>      self[sym]
>    end
Here''s a mildly destructive "Monkey Patch", showing that
technique to avoid
writing too much attributes[''blah''] all over the place.

class REXML::Element
  def method_missing(symbol)
    attr_name = symbol.id2name
    attr_name.gsub!(/!$/, '''')

    unless attributes.has_key?(attr_name)
      raise NoMethodError,
            "missing attribute: `#{attr_name}` in "+
              "<#{name} #{attributes.keys.join(''
'')}>",
            caller
    end
    return attributes[attr_name]
  end
end

Problem: It interferes with other Monkey Patches on REXML. (Too many monkeys 
climbing that inheritance tree!) I need to get around to seeing if blah? 
would work better, for a clean read, and if the patch could call some 
equivalent of ''super'' would allow other monkey patches to pass
thru.

Here''s its home project, a plugin, and its file:

http://phlip.svnrepository.com/svn/yar_wiki
http://phlip.svnrepository.com/svn/yar_wiki/lib/assert_xpath.rb

-- 
  Phlip
  http://flea.sourceforge.net/PiglegToo_1.html 


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