DRY Ruby Initialization with Hash Argument

Question

I find myself using hash arguments to constructors quite a bit, especially when writing DSLs for configuration or other bits of API that the end user will be exposed to. Wha

Answer 1

My solution is similar to Marc-André Lafortune. The difference is that each value is deleted from the input hash as it is used to assign a member variable. Then the Struct-derived class can perform further processing on whatever may be left in the Hash. For instance, the JobRequest below retains any "extra" arguments from the Hash in an options field.

module Message
  def init_from_params(params)
    members.each {|m| self[m] ||= params.delete(m)}
  end
end

class JobRequest < Struct.new(:url, :file, :id, :command, :created_at, :options)
  include Message

  # Initialize from a Hash of symbols to values.
  def initialize(params)
    init_from_params(params)
    self.created_at ||= Time.now
    self.options = params
  end
end