Can't understand why I'm getting a `initialize': uninitialized constant Controller::View (NameError) - ruby

Question

I'm trying to understand why I'm getting this error and I suspect it's because I have my Controller class and View class in two separate Ruby files. I was told that using require_relative 'filename' should reference all the code from one file into another, but I seem to be missing something. Okay here goes,
In controller.rb file, I have
require_relative 'view'
require_relative 'deck_model'
require_relative 'flashcard_model'
class Controller
def initialize
#deckofcards = Deck.new
#welcome = View.new.welcome
#player_guess = View.new.get_user_guess
#success_view = View.new.success
#failure_view = View.new.failure
end
def run
#Logic to run the game
# #current_card
# #user_guess
puts "Let's see if this prints"
# pull_card_from_deck
end
end
In my view.rb file, I have,
require_relative 'controller'
class View
attr_accessor :userguess
def initialize (userguess = " ")
#userguess = userguess
end
def welcome
system ("clear")
puts "Welcome! Let's play a game."
puts "I'll give you a definition and you have to give me the term"
puts "Ready..."
end
def get_user_guess
#userguess = gets.chomp.downcase
end
def success
puts "Excellent! You got it."
end
def failure
puts "No, that's not quite right."
end
end
However when I run controller.rb, I get the following error,
/Users/sean/Projects/flash/source/controller.rb:11:in `initialize': uninitialized constant Controller::View (NameError)
from /Users/sean/Projects/flash/source/controller.rb:51:in `new'
from /Users/sean/Projects/flash/source/controller.rb:51:in `<top (required)>'
from /Users/sean/Projects/flash/source/view.rb:1:in `require_relative'
from /Users/sean/Projects/flash/source/view.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
from controller.rb:1:in `require_relative'
from controller.rb:1:in `<main>'
Can anyone please help me figure this out.

Answer 1

You did not post your full code, but it sounds like this is an error caused by the circular dependencies you specified in your project. You have view.rb depending on controller.rb and controller.rb depending on view.rb. The Ruby interpreter will not execute these files simultaneously; it has to execute one and then execute the other.
It looks like it is executing controller.rb first, but it sees that view.rb is required, so it starts executing that. Then in view.rb it sees that controller.rb is required, so it starts executing controller.rb again. Then at some point in controller.rb, you must be creating a new instance of the Controller class. But we aren't done defining the View class yet, so View is undefined and you get an exception while trying to create that controller.
To fix this, you should consider not creating any Controller or View objects until both of the classes are fully loaded.

Answer 2

+1 to #DavidGrayson comment.
If my assumption is correct, your issue is with require_relative 'controller' in your view.rb file.
If you see, it looks like View is requiring Controller then Controller gets loaded which seems to be sending new somewhere to Controller which then sends new to View but it hasn't been completely required.