"Eric Anderson" <eric / afaik.us> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:32og2lF3olcvuU1 / individual.net... > Tim Hunter wrote: > > I have two objects, big and little. I need to convert big to little. Big and > > little don't have much in common except little's instance variables are a > > subset of big's. That is, to convert big to little I need to copy the > > instance variables they have in common. What's the right way to do this? > > Should I add a "to_little" instance method to big's class, or should I add > > a "from_big" singleton method to little's class? Neither one seems right. > > You could do both (TIMTOWTDI) but I would lean towards to_little. It > matches the existing Ruby library. For example the to_s() methods, or > the String object's to_i() method. I think there are also to_a() for > converting to arrays in some objects. > > Just my 2 cents, +1 for to_little. Could look like this class Little end class Big def to_little little = Little.allocate %w{@inst_var1 @inst_var2}.each do |iv| little.instance_variable_set(iv, instance_variable_get(iv)) end little end end Kind regards robert