Re: AKClassHierarchy

[Gavin Kistner <gavin@...>]

On Feb 11, 2006, at 11:42 AM, PA wrote:
> > * Does not currently support any sort of 'super' mechanism for  
> > magically calling methods from an ancestor with the same name.
>
> What about doing it explicitly instead of magically?
>
> super.init( self )
>
> In other words, you want the parent implementation (super.init) act  
> on the current instance (self).

That's what I have now, but you have to explicitly specify the parent  
class:

	Rectangle = AKClass:new( )
	function Rectangle:initialize( inW, inH )
		self.w = inW or 0
		self.h = inH or 0
	end

	Square = AKClass:new( Rectangle )
	function Square:initialize( inLength )
		Rectangle.initialize( self, inLength, inLength )
	end

	UnitSquare = AKClass:new( Square )
	function UnitSquare:initialize( )
		Square.initialize( self, 1 )
	end


I tried what you suggest (albeit with "self.class.superclass",  
because I don't have a super property directly available to  
instances), but it fails when you have more than one level involved:
	function Square:initialize( inLength )
		self.class.superclass.initialize( self, inLength, inLength )
	end

	function UnitSquare( inLength )
		self.class.superclass.initialize( self, 1 )
	end

The problem is that when the UnitSquare instance is passed to  
Square's initializer, the self.class is still UnitSquare, which means  
that Square's initializer will infinitely call itself. For more info  
on this problem, see the second half of this post I made on the  
comp.lang.ruby group last night:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/ 
c3b22bf2d53bd68b/89525293809a02e3#89525293809a02e3