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Feature #8635

open

attr_accessor with default block

Added by judofyr (Magnus Holm) over 10 years ago. Updated over 2 years ago.

Status:
Open
Assignee:
-
Target version:
-
[ruby-core:56001]

Description

=begin

It's quite common to define attributes (like attr_reader, attr_accessor) with default values. It would be useful if Ruby provided a helper method for this case. attr_accessor and attr_reader can support this nicely using a default block:

class Person

(1) Simple approach

attr_writer :name
def name
@name ||= 'Hello'
end

(2) nil-safe approach

attr_writer :name
def name
return @name if defined? @name
@name = 'Hello'
end

(3) This proposal

attr_accessor :name do
'Hello'
end
end

p = Person.new
p.instance_variable_get(:@name) # => nil
p.name # => 'Hello'
p.instance_variable_get(:@name) # => 'Hello'

Problems with current approaches:

  • The reader and the writer looks widely different
  • Solution 1 doesn't work as intended when the default value may evaulate to nil/false
  • Solution 2 requires you to write the attribute name five times

=end

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