RCR 290: Add warning for misspellings of 'initialize'

I'll offer provisional support since only American English spells the word "initialize," but think that it should only warn about #initialise if and only if there is no #initialize defined in the class. Something like:

  class Class
    def method_added(name)
      unless self.instance_methods.include?("initialize")
        if name.to_s[/\Ainitiali[sz]e\Z/] and name != :initialize
          warn "warning: probably misspelled `initialize' as `#{name}'"
        end
      end
    end
  end

-austin

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I agree with that it should only warn if the current Class does not already have an initialize method by itself. I disagree with that it should only warn about 'initialise' -- mistyping it in other ways is just way too common to ignore it. So I'd suggest this new implementation:

class Class

  def method_added(name)
    if not private_instance_methods(false).include?("initialize") and
      name.to_s[/\Ain[^_]{1,6}li[sz]e\Z/] and name != :initialize
    then
      warn "warning: probably misspelled `initialize' as `#{name}'"
    end
  end

end

--Florian Gross

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Sigh, this problem would be practically mute if we simply used #init instead.

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I agree, but I don't see the name getting changed soon, unfortunately.

-- Florian Gross

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I often have a problem when I misspell initialize as "intialize". Tracking down the source of the problem isn't always straightforward. A warning would definitely help.

-- Paul Brannan

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How about testing whether there is a method with a similar sounding name as "initialize" defined. Something like levenstein-measure or whatever else (approximate matching). To limit the effect, that should only be applied for methods that start with "init".

I got this several times wrong, mostly "initalize" IIRC.

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That would work for me as well -- I only used the Regexp approach because Ruby comes with that built-in -- if Levenstein or Soundex measure is easier to implement and complains about the common typos without causing trouble in other cases then I'm definitely okay with that.

-- Florian Gross

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I just don't feel that this belongs in Ruby. Any decent unit testing would quickly reveal this error.

-- Dan

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Would it only reveal it or trace it back to the misnaming as well?

-- Florian Gross

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Alternative solution, arbitrary initializer names:

  class Module
      def init(initializer_name)
            alias_method(:initialize, initializer_name.to_sym)
      end
  end
  class A
      def initialise
            ...
      end
      init :initialise
  end
  class B
     def make
         ...
     end
     init :make
  end
  class C
      def initialize
        ...
      end
      init :initialize
  end

If you misspell it again when you call init it raises an exception much earlier. If you don't misspell it again it works fine anyway.

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This is a task much better suited to an IDE than an interpreter, just as typos should be caught by web browsers, not DNS servers.

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I strongly oppose this suggestion.

• Maybe it's just me but I've never had any problem spelling "initialize".
• I think this has no place in the interpreter, like the previous comment says it's more the job of an IDE/editor.
• This could potentially be very annoying, trying to define a method with a similar name.

As for changing the method name to "init", I find that less rubyistic. I think "init" is more cryptic and less readable.

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