mbriggs / virtual

virtual

Virtual method declaration.

Summary

A virtual method is a method which is inheritable and overridable. Since all methods in ruby are virtual, syntax is not required to provide this capability.

When developing framework style code, it is often required to override or implement a specific method in order to satisfy a contract. The purpose of this library is to provide a way for a developer of framework code to convey that intent.

Usage

The virtual and pure_virtual macros can be added to all classes with:

require 'virtual'; Virtual.activate

Optionally, they can be applied to a single class with Virtual.activate(MyClass)

virtual is an indication that a method may be overridden. pure_virtual is an indication that a method must be overridden (if it is not, an error will be raised when called).

Example

class MyClass
  virtual :my_optional_method
  pure_virtual :my_required_method
end

License

The virtual library is released under the MIT License.