Hello,
I want to write a class with a class variable that gets initialized as 
soon as the class is defined.  Something like this:

class BigFloat
    @@precision = 40  # This doesn't work.
    ...
end

The contents of @@precision affect the instantiation of the class, so 
it has to be defined before I create any object.

I don't want to replace @@precision by a constant (PRECISION) because I 
want the user to be able to change its value.  I'll write accessor methods 
so the user can type:

BigFloat.precision = 50

Does anyone know how I can accomplish this?

Thanks a lot.

-- 
Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assistant.  Math Dept.
University of Maryland.  (301) 405-5137