I have a class QuestionList that stores a list of 'Question' objects.
class QuestionList
attr_accessor :questions
def initialize
@questions = []
end
end
I then add questions to the list and then "ask" these questions from my main class as so:
list = QuestionList.new
list.questions << Question.new(5, 3)
list.questions << Question.new(1, 5)
list.questions << Question.new(2, 4)
list.questions.each do |question|
puts "#{question.ask}"
end
where Question.ask simply outputs the question as a string.
I'm not sure how acceptable it is to be writing to an instance variable from my main class using the << operator, and list.questions.push(Question.new(5, 3)) is even more unclear from the main class.
Would it be better to have a QuestionsList.add_question(question) method?
The same goes for list.questions.each - is this acceptable to be used in the main class?
I think your use of attr_accessor here is fine, though depending on how much functionality you continue to add, it will likely be clearer to restrict functionality of that class to the class itself.
Regarding your question on using a method within QuestionList, this would come down to readability. Something to note first, however: you used QuestionsList.add_question(question) as an example. This would create a class method. What you really want here is an instance method, which would read as list.add_question(question), since you already have an instance of the list created. This blog post has some good information on the difference between class and instance methods.
I personally find instance methods would most clearly communicate your intent. I would write out QuestionList as follows:
class QuestionList
def initialize
@questions = []
end
def add_question(question)
@questions << question
end
def print_all_questions_in_list
@questions.each do |question|
puts "#{question.ask}"
end
end
end
This SO post has some excellent information on Ruby's attr methods, if you'd like additional info there.