Evaluating a variable from it's name

If I have a string variable that contains the “name” of another
variable. How can I access that other variable for both assignment
and evaluation?

e.g.

x = 100
nameofvar = “x”

I want to set the value of the variable specified by nameofvar and
also get it’s value.

Seems like some sort of reflection calls would be needed for this…

Hi –

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007, rlaferla wrote:

I want to set the value of the variable specified by nameofvar and
also get it’s value.

Seems like some sort of reflection calls would be needed for this…

There’s eval, but in almost seven years of Ruby program I have never
needed to do that, and would be very surprised if it were really a
good idea. Anyway, that wasn’t your question, so I’ll leave it at
that :slight_smile:

David

Hello,

See the following code:

class Reflection
attr_accessor :x
def y
“y”
end
def call_method (method_name)
self.send(method_name)
end
end

Now you can do the following things:

r = Reflection.new
=> #Reflection:0xb7172b60

r.call_method(“y”)
=> “y”

r.call_method(“x”)
=> nil

r.x = “test”
=> “test”

r.call_method(“x”)
=> “test”

Best regards,
Jeroen