lazy_donkey

LazyDonkey

LazyDonkey is a gem that introduces lazily initialized attributes, whose value is calculated on the first use. In all other aspects they are identical to attributes defined with attribute_accessor or attr:

class Foo
  lazy_attribute(:foo) {"Return value"}
end

When you call "#foo" for the first time, it will execute the code block and assign its return value to the instance variable @foo. The return value is cached and will be returned next times you call #foo. The initialization code block will be executed only once.

Visibility

By default, lazy_attributes creates public methods, but you can explicitly specify visibility for each attribute:

  lazy_attribute(:public_attribute, :public)
  lazy_attribute(:protected_attrobite, :protected)
  lazy_attribute(:private_attribute, :private)

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'lazy_donkey'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install lazy_donkey

Usage

Use this gem for defining instance attributes that you don't need right away. You can use it instead of initializers which always run at start time, and keep your initialization code with the rest of your components. You can avoid initialization errors in test environment which has incorrect/missing settings for components you're not going to test. Or you can find another simple use for it.

Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/[my-github-username]/lazy_donkey/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request