Ruby - File for Enums

Question

In C# i'm used to create a file called "Enums.cs" and in there define all Enums my app will require... I think it's easier to do it. Now that taking on Ruby, I read and choose the module approach to defining enums because i can associate a int to a "word", like:

module ContractType
  Undefined = 0
  Internship = 1
  CLT = 2
  Contractor = 4
end

Now how can I have my "User" model expose a property like newGuy.CurrentContractType = ContractType.Internship ?!?

Do I import the module? extend ? Or should I reference the GlobalEnums.rb file where all the enums are?

Answer 1

Good question. Simply require the GlobalEnums.rb module at the top of your file and then refer to the module and constant like this:

newGuy.currentContractType = ContractType::Internship

You'll note that in Ruby :: is used to refer to a constant in a namespace (class or module), rather than . . If you have more than one level of nesting, you just chain the :: s:

module Foo
  module Bar
    class Baz
      Qux = "quux"
    end
  end
end

p Foo::Bar::Baz::Qux
# => "quux"

PS I suggest glancing through a Ruby style guide such as this one , in particular the Naming section . With rare exceptions ^† , method and variable names in Ruby are snake_case . Module and class names are CamelCase and other constants are usually SCREAMING_CAMEL_CASE .

With that in mind, a seasoned Rubyist would probably write your code like this:

module MyApp
  module ContractType
    UNDEFINED = 0
    INTERNSHIP = 1
    CLT = 2
    CONTRACTOR = 4
  end
end

# Assuming this is somewhere inside the MyApp namespace...
new_guy.current_contract_type = ContractType::INTERNSHIP

^† For example, strict conversion methods like Integer(n) and shortcut constructors like URI(str) or Nokogiri::XML(str) .