En rñÑonse Chris Eskow :
> Hi, I'm semi-new to Ruby and I have a question.
> 
> I have a class, World, that basically looks like this:
> 
> class World
> 
> # Convenience method that takes one or more symbols and defines an
> # accessor+mutator method for each one.
> def self.att *atts
> atts.each do |att|
> class_eval %{
> def #{att} val=nil
> val == nil ? @#{att} : @#{att} = val
> end
> }
> end
> end
> 
> # Now I can define some attributes.
> att :title, :author
> 

This looks a lot like the traits library. You might want to look at it.

> 
> The att method creates an instance method that sets an attribute if
> an argument is given, or returns it if no arguments are given. This
> is nice and all, but now I want to use this att method with another
> class. Since it's very short I could just copy and paste it, but I'd
> rather use a module, Attributes, that I could include into any class:
> 
> class World
> include Attributes
> att :title, :author
> end
> 
> class Thing
> include Attributes
> att :name, :desc
> end
> 
> I'm having trouble getting it to work, however. I have a feeling I
> have to use metaclasses or something, but I'm not quite sure how I'm
> suppose to do that. Everything I tried resulted in "undefined method
> `att'" errors. Any thoughts?
> 

What you need is the att method to become a class method rather than an 
instance method, so that you can use it like one uses attr_accessor. To 
do that, simply use "extend" instead of "include":
class World
extend Attributes
att :title, :author
end

Another way that uses metaclasses indeed is to include your module in 
the metaclass of the class:
class OtherWorld
class <<self
   include Attributes
end
att :title, :author
end

I'm not aware of any difference between those two ways.
-- 
Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.