CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
Richlewis
Richlewis

Reputation: 15374

Get the value of a global variable related to a string

I need to convert a string "variable_1" into the value that the global variable $variable_1 holds. The value of $variable_1 will have already been defined. How can I convert a string into an object? Is this possible?

I looked at the method instance_variable_set but this does not suit my needs.

A thread on rubyforums advises that eval could be used, for example if I was to compare two variables using cucucmber and rspec, I could do something like:

Then(/^I expect my variables to be different "(.*?)" "(.*?)"$/) do |count1, count2|
  expect(eval("$#{count1}")).not_to eq(eval("$#{count2}"))
end

Is there another way to obtain a global variable from a string of its name?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 808

Answers (1)

Lukas Baliak
Lukas Baliak

Reputation: 2869

You can use eval method like this

$variable_1 = "Try"
s = "variable_1"

eval("$#{s}")

puts $variable_1
# => Try

Upvotes: 2

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