Cast between String and Classname

Question

I have a string, containing an Class name. It is, for example, a string containing \"Article\". That string came up from the params[]. What should I do to work with this str

Answer 1

class Abc
end #=> nil
klass = eval("Abc") #=> Abc
klass.new #=> #

Assumes there really is a class with the name provided...

In ActiveSupport, there was String#constantize, which did the same thing, but I believe it's deprecated after 2.1.

EDIT: this is the implementation of constantize from ActiveSupport 2.1.2:

  def constantize(camel_cased_word)
    names = camel_cased_word.split('::')
    names.shift if names.empty? || names.first.empty?

    constant = Object
    names.each do |name|
      constant = constant.const_defined?(name) ? constant.const_get(name) : constant.const_missing(name)
    end
    constant
  end