Dirty Objects: attribute_reset

Fails on me with this:

  1) Error:
test_attribute_reset(DirtyTest):
NoMethodError: undefined method `catchphrase=' for nil:NilClass
    ./test/cases/dirty_test.rb:67:in `test_attribute_reset'
    ./test/cases/../../../activesupport/lib/active_support/testing/setup_and_teardown.rb:57:in `__send__'
    ./test/cases/../../../activesupport/lib/active_support/testing/setup_and_teardown.rb:57:in `run'

Seems like the fixtures are not loaded by that test case. I suggest using

Pirate.create!(:catchphrase => 'Yar.')

which seems to work OK.

Otherwise, nice patch, useful to have.

Thanks for the comment.

I run test with

rake test TEST=find . -name dirty_test.rb

and

rake test

That seems not to fail for me, so i didn't care.

But you are right since there is no explicit creation of pirates.

I will submit a patch along today.

Very good point on the missing bang. Updated patch. All tests pass in MySQL, SQLite3 and PostgreSQL.

The _reset name doesn't do it for me, it's backwards:

  foo.reset_attribute(:name)

Would see more natural to me

Makes sense to me. I'll work something together. At first glance it looks AttributeMethods will need to expand to include more than just #attribute_method_suffix. Possibly something along the lines of #attribute_method_prefix and/or #attribute_method_affix.

I wish I'd read my above comment once more. I meant your comment made sense to me rather than I thought the attribute_reset! name made sense. reset_attribute! is far more appropriate.

I've now worked a patch together which implements this functionality as reset_attribute! rather than attribute_reset! It's now possible to create attributes methods with prefixes and/or suffixes using the class methods attribute_method_prefix, attribute_method_suffix and attribute_method_affix. Every method set up through these methods is represented by an instance of a new MethodMatcher class. All these instances are stored in the class variable @@attribute_method_matchers.

match_attribute_method? is now an instance method rather than a class method. This allows it access to @attributes and in doing so we can know that a positive match represents a valid method. Previously those methods calling match_attribute_method? (method_missing and responds_to?) had to check that the attribute name part of the match was valid. They no longer need to do so which makes them read better.

The matching of a method name is split between the instance method match_attribute_method? and the class method matching_method_signatures. matching_method_signatures returns all MethodMatcher instances which could possibly match and match_attribute_method? picks out one that actually does. For example, say we have a method suffix of 'default' and another method suffix of 'original_default'. When matching a method name of 'title_original_default' the matching method signatures would be:

• { :prefix => '', :base => 'title_original', :suffix => '_default' }
• { :prefix => '', :base => 'title', :suffix => '_original_default' }

match_attribute_method? would then select the latter as this is the one with a valid attribute name.

As this is my first contribution I'd welcome any feedback, however small. Can anyone think of a better name than attribute_method_affix for an attribute method with both a prefix and suffix?

I've reworked the changes into two patches against master as requested.

The one thing I don't like about it is that there are now two ways in which method_missing and respond_to? call attribute query methods.

1. self.send(method_id, *args, &block)
   
2. __send__("#{match.prefix}attribute#{match.suffix}", match.base, *args, &block)

The first only gets called when no methods have yet been added to generated_methods after that the code relies on the second which seems a shame as it's messier. So I've also attached a third 'work in progress' patch which you might be interested in looking at which does a rough job of hinting at one way of tidying it up. If you're interested in me developing it further let me know.

Automatic cleanup of spam.

omega watch