Question

I have an external file: path_to_external_file.rb with some class definition:

class A
  some_definitions
end

And I want to load that within module B so that the class A defined above can be referred to as B::A. I tried:

class B
  load('path_to_external_file.rb')
end

but A is defined in the main environment, not in B:

A #=> A
B.constants # => []

How can I load external files within some class/module?

Edit
Should I read the external files as strings, and evaluate them within Class.new{...}, and include that class within B?

Answer 1

You cannot. At least using load or require, the Ruby files will always be evaluated in a top context.

You can work around that problem in two ways:

• Define class B::A directly (but you are probably trying to avoid that)
• Use eval(File.read("path_to_external_file.rb")) within your B class

Edit: Maybe, this library is interesting for you: https://github.com/dreamcat4/script/blob/master/intro.txt