Attr_accessor for Subclass inside Parent Class - ruby

Question

I'm trying to figure out a way to dynamically generate subclasses based on a parent class. In my specific case I'd want to have attr_accessor for every instance variable, initialized in my Parent class and inherited on the SubClasses.
My classes are three different models representing three different tables in a DB.
"Record" is my parent class where I want to store and write all of my code.
"Post" and "User" are the Subclasses inheriting.
My code
class Record
attr_reader :id
# attr_accessor
def initialize(**params)
#id = params[:id]
instance_variable_set("##{params.keys[0]}", params.values[0])
instance_variable_set("##{params.keys[1]}", params.values[1])
instance_variable_set(:#votes, params["votes"] || 0) if instance_of?(Post)
# p self.title
end
Want I want to achieve is setting attr_accessor as for example in my Subclass "Post" I want to call
post = Post.new(title: "New post", url: "some url")
puts post.title
I can access the title instance variable without raising a NoMethodError
Could someone guide me, or give me some hint?
Thanks

Answer 1

You're going about it backwards. A parent class should not have to know about or implement specific logic for its subclasses.
class Record
attr_reader :id
def initialize(**attributes)
attributes.each do |key, value|
send("#{key}=", value)
end
end
end
class Post < Record
attr_accessor :title
attr_accessor :votes
end
irb(main):066:0> Post.new(id: 1, votes: 10, title: "Hello World").title
=> "Hello World"
attr_accessor is just a metaprogramming convenience for defining methods so your accessor methods are inherited anyways. But if you're writing something like an Object Relational Manager you'll want to define your own macro method for defining attributes that lets you keep track of the attributes of a class:
module Attributes
def self.included(base)
base.extend(ClassMethods)
base.class_eval do
#attributes ||= {}
end
end
# assigns the passed attributes to the instance
def initialize(**attributes)
attributes.each do |key, value|
send "#{key}=", value
end
end
# gets all the attributes of an instance
def attributes
self.class.attributes.keys.each_with_object(Hash.new) do |key, hash|
hash[key] = send(key)
end
end
module ClassMethods
# Inherits the attributes of the parent class
def inherited(subclass)
attributes.tap do |parent_attributes|
subclass.class_eval do
#attributes ||= {}.merge(parent_attributes)
end
end
end
# defines an attribute that is inherited
def attribute(name, type = nil, **kwargs)
#attributes[name] = { type: type }.merge(kwargs)
attr_accessor name
end
def attributes
#attributes
end
end
end
class Record
include Attributes
attribute :id, Integer
end
class Post < Record
attribute :title, String
attribute :votes, Integer
end
irb(main):101:0> Post.new(votes: 10, title: "Hello World").attributes
=> {:id=>nil, :title=>"Hello World", :votes=>10}
This stores the attribute definitions in a class instance variable which lets you attach "metadata" which opens up for features that you will want later such as typecasting, serialization and dirty tracking.