Request for Review: Make it possible to prefix delegate methods

rubyonrails-core
1

I've submitted a patch to Lighthouse which makes it possible to prefix delegation methods, i.e.:

  delegate :name, :address, :to => :client, :prefix => true

Which would create the methods #client_name and #client_address. It's also possible to give a custom prefix, e.g. :customer.

Could I get someone to take a look at this patch?

<Tickets - Ruby on Rails - rails 984>

2

Why wouldn't you just do obj.client.name and obj.client.address if you're looking to keep some context in the names?

3

Also if you're looking for some alternate method names, wouldn't the use of "alias" help?

4

The theoretic basis for the proposal stems from the Law of Demeter[1], which basically states that you should “only talk to your immediate friends.”, meaning that `obj.client.name' makes assumptions about the inner structure of `client', while `obj.client_name' doesn't. A more general Ruby discussion[2] shows how to delegate properly with the Forwardable mixin. Since Rails uses the ActiveSupport delegation, I've tried to implement some of the ideas there.

1. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Of_Demeter&gt; 2. <http://blog.jayfields.com/2006/05/law-of-demeter-and- forwardable.html>

Best regards Daniel Schierbeck

5

Just want to say that I would really like that too!