Stupid Question?

Zulq Alam me at zulq.net
Wed Jan 16 17:48:55 UTC 2008


Your original statement was that "You can't use any of the instance 
methods or accessors because they don't yet exist!". I am saying you can 
use them, and the do exist, although they may or may not have a value 
depending on how you chose to initialize your object.

If you do not change anything, then #new will send the newly created 
object #initialize. To avoid this behaviour you will need to create a 
class side method and send #basicNew to create your instance and then 
initialize it as you desire. Have a look at the Point example I included.

Regards,
Zulq.


Richard Eng wrote:
> I'm not finding this to be true. I have a class #GSAssignmentList. It has
> instance variable #clientId and accessor #clientId:. I do the following:
> 
>     self call: (GSAssignmentList new clientId: aValue)
> 
> In the #initialize method for GSAssignmentList, I write to the Transcript:
> 
>     Transcript cr; show: 'RKE: clientId = ', clientId asString.
> 
> It shows 'nil'.
> 
> In #renderContentOn:, I write to the Transcript and get aValue, as expected.
> This is contrary to what you're telling me *if* the object is created with
> #clientId = aValue *before* #initialize starts to execute.
> 
> You see, I need the value of aValue in order for #initialize to complete.
> 
> Regards,
> Richard
> 
> ----------------
> Zulq Alam wrote:
> 
> Hi Richard,
> 
> The instance variables and methods, including accessors, exist when the
> object is created. They do not depend on the initialize method. Thus you
> can access any instance variable or call any defined method, such as
> accessors, at any time after creation. Whether they have a value or
> return anything useful depends on your object and how you *chose* to
> initialize it.
> 
> The use of #initialize is a convention to set-up object state *after*
> the object has been created.
> 
> 
> 
> 



More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list