Ruby, etc

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He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy. - Fortune Cookie

Builder Pattern in Ruby

Call me crazy, but this is why I classify myself as a language geek. When I learn something fascinating, i wonder hmm how can I do that with X language? My last post I did an example of the Builder pattern as described in Effective Java by Joshua Bloch. The main motivation for me to use Builder is to have flexible parameter lists, without worrying about order of parameters (there are a few other reasons outlined in the book, but this is what I find cool).

Its too easy.

My class:

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class Address
  attr_accessor :street, :street2, :city, :state, :zip, :address_type

  def initialize(&block)

    #set default values
    self.city = "Chicago"
    self.state = "IL"

    #set value from block 
    instance_eval &block if block_given?

  end

end

And the usage of it:

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  def testDefaultValues
    myaddress = Address.new
    assert_equal("Chicago", myaddress.city)
    assert_equal("IL", myaddress.state)
  end

  def testStreetStateZip
    myaddress = Address.new do
      self.street = "this is the street"
      self.zip = "11111"
    end
    assert_equal("Chicago", myaddress.city)
    assert_equal("IL", myaddress.state)
    assert_equal("this is the street", myaddress.street)
    assert_equal("11111", myaddress.zip)
  end

Wow, huh? Compare to

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public void testBuilderDefaults() {
  Address expected = new Address.Builder("Chicago", "IL").build();
  assertEquals("State is IL", "IL", expected.getState());
  assertEquals("City is Chicago", "Chicago", expected.getCity());
}

then the optional params are chained to that:

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 public void testBuilderStreetStateZip() {
  Address expected = new Address.Builder("Chicago", "IL").street("this is an address").zip("11111").build();
  assertEquals("this is an address", expected.getStreet());
  assertEquals("11111", expected.getZip());
  assertEquals("IL", expected.getState());
  assertEquals("Chicago", expected.getCity());
}

Yes… sometimes its hard not to gloat. :-D

yeah yeah yeah, its not really “fair” to compare strongly typed languages… but as I said, my motivation is to have easy parameter lists without having to remember specific ordering of params for constructor or use multiple set methods.