The initialize method on the class side will be called only when *the class* is initialised. You are thinking of the instance-side initialize method which is called each time you create an instance.
On 9/29/08, Mark Volkmann <mark@ociweb.com> wrote:
On Sep 28, 2008, at 11:32 PM, K. K. Subramaniam wrote:
On Sunday 28 Sep 2008 7:26:43 pm Mark Volkmann wrote:
I think my main issue is scoping. I want to define a constant that is
associated with a class to avoid name conflicts.
See classes Color, Cursor or Float for examples of scoped constants:
Color red
Cursor wait
Float pi
For constants that should be exposed to a few (but not all) classes, use pool
dictionaries.
Thanks! This brings up another question. Where is a good place to initialize a constant? I see in the case of "Float pi" that it is held in a class variable that is initialized in the initialize method. Isn't it the case that the initialize method is only called if a Float object is created? Also, isn't it called every time a Float object is created? It seems that would mean if I followed that pattern for one of my own constants then I wouldn't be sure it was set and I'd pay the cost of setting it many times.
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Mark Volkmann