Ruby class instance variables and inheritance

Question

I have a Ruby class called LibraryItem. I want to associate with every instance of this class an array of attributes. This array is long and looks something lik

Answer 1

This is for strings (anything really), rather than arrays, but...

class A
  def self.a
    @a || superclass.a rescue nil
  end

  def self.a=(value)
    @a = value
  end

  self.a = %w( apple banana chimp )
end

class B < A
end

class C < B
  self.a += %w( dromedary elephant )
end

class D < A
  self.a = %w( pi e golden_ratio )
end



irb(main):001:0> require 'test2'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> A.a
=> ["apple", "banana", "chimp"]
irb(main):003:0> B.a
=> ["apple", "banana", "chimp"]
irb(main):004:0> C.a
=> ["apple", "banana", "chimp", "dromedary", "elephant"]
irb(main):005:0> D.a
=> ["pi", "e", "golden_ratio"]
irb(main):006:0> A.a = %w( 7 ) 
=> ["7"]
irb(main):007:0> A.a
=> ["7"]
irb(main):008:0> B.a
=> ["7"]
irb(main):009:0> C.a = nil
=> nil
irb(main):010:0> C.a
=> ["7"]