PrimaryKey wrote:
>> How would you use static constructors/destructors?  Perhaps we can show 
>> you Ruby equivalents.
>>
>> --
>> -- Jim Weirich
> 
> Please consider the following (pseudo) C# example:
> 
> 	public class AS400Server
> 	{
> 		static AS400 server;
> 
> 		static AS400Server()
> 		{
> 			server = new AS400Connection("SERVERNAME");
> 		}
> 
> 		static ~AS400Server()   // This is not real C#
> 		{
> 			server.disconnect();
> 		}
> 
> 		static int GetServer()
> 		{
> 			return server;
> 		}
> 	}

I would ask first: does having one class per connection ("SERVERAME")
scale well? what if you need two servers...? This question isn't really
off topic, because once you accept this possibility, it becomes very
natural in ruby to do this:

class AS400Server
  def initialize(serv_name)
    @serv_name = serv_name
  end

  def connect
    # do something to connect to the server
    yield self
  ensure
    # do something to disconnet
  end
end

Then in your main code you might have:

def run_my_app
  AS400Server.new("SERVERNAME").connect do |serv|
    # do something with serv
  end
end

or

THE_SERVER = AS400Server.new("SERVERNAME")
def run_my_app
  THE_SERVER.connect do
    # do something with THE_SERVER
  end
end

Unless you exit with Kernel#exit! or the process is killed in a way that
ruby cannot catch (e.g., SIGKILL), the ensure clause will close the
server connection first. (Anyway, in the case of SIGKILL, a static
destructor would not be called either, right? Or can C# do that?)

(You can even roll the #connect method into initialize, if you want.
Passing the server object from yeild isn't really necessary, but you may
need to reference it in the block.)

-- 
      vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407