How to subclass an Array in Ruby? - arrays

Question

I'm trying to subclass Array to implement a map method that returns instances of my Record class. I'm trying to create a sort of "lazy" array that only instantiates objects as they are needed to try and avoid allocating too many Ruby objects at once. I'm hoping to make better use of the garbage collector by only instantiating an object on each iteration.
class LazyArray < Array
def initialize(results)
#results = results
end
def map(&block)
record = Record.new(#results[i]) # how to get each item from #results for each iteration?
# how do I pass the record instance to the block for each iteration?
end
end
simple_array = [{name: 'foo'}, {name: 'bar'}]
lazy_array_instance = LazyArray.new(simple_array)
expect(lazy_array_instance).to be_an Array
expect(lazy_array_instance).to respond_to :map
lazy_array_instance.map do |record|
expect(record).to be_a Record
end
How can I subclass Array so that I can return an instance of my Record class in each iteration?

Answer 1

From what I know, you shouldn't have to do anything like this at all. Using .lazy you can perform lazy evaluation of arrays:
simple_array_of_results.lazy.map do |record|
# do something with Record instance
end
Now, you've got some odd situation where you're doing something like -
SomeOperation(simple_array_of_results)
and either you want SomeOperation to do it's thing lazily, or you want the output to be something lazy -
lazily_transformed_array_of_results = SomeOperation(simple_array_of_results)
page_of_results = lazily_transformed_array_of_results.take(10)
If that sounds right... I'd expect it to be as simple as:
SomeOperation(simple_array_of_results.lazy)
Does that work? array.lazy returns an object that responds to map, after all...
Edit:
...after reading your question again, it seems like what you actually want is something like:
SomeOperation(simple_array_of_results.lazy.collect{|r| SomeTransform(r)})
SomeTransform is whatever you're thinking of that takes that initial data and uses it to create your objects ("as needed" becoming "one at a time"). SomeOperation is whatever it is that needs to be passed something that responds to map.

Answer 2

So you have an array of simple attributes or some such and you want to instantiate an object before calling the map block. Sort of pre-processing on a value-by-value basis.
class Record
attr_accessor :name
def initialize(params={})
self.name = params[:name]
end
end
require 'delegate'
class MapEnhanced < SimpleDelegator
def map(&block)
#delegate_ds_obj.map do |attributes|
object = Record.new(attributes)
block.call(object)
end
end
end
array = MapEnhanced.new([{name: 'Joe'}, {name: 'Pete'}])
array.map {|record| record.name }
=> ["Joe" "Pete"]
An alternative (which will allow you to keep object.is_a? Array)
class MapEnhanced < Array
alias_method :old_map, :map
def map(&block)
old_map do |attributes|
object = Record.new(attributes)
block.call(object)
end
end
end