NAME
  attributes.rb

INSTALL
  gem install attributes

URIS
  http://rubyforge.org/projects/codeforpeople/
  http://codeforpeople.com/lib/ruby

SYNOPSIS
  attributes.rb provides a set of attr_* like method with several user
  friendly additions.  attributes.rb is similar to the traits.rb package but
  sacrifices a few features for simplicity of implementation.

  the implementation of attributes.rb borrows many of the best ideas from the
  metakoans.rb ruby quiz

    http://www.rubyquiz.com/quiz67.html

  in particular the solutions of Christian Neukirchen and Florian Gross along
  with concepts from the original traits lib

  key features provided by attributes are

    - ability to specify default values for attrs and definition time.  values
      can be literal objects or blocks, which are evaluated in the context of
      self to initialize the variable

    - classes remember which attributes they've defined and this information is
     available to client code

    - a whole suite of methods is defined by calls to #attributes including
     getter, setter, query (var?) and banger (var! - which forces
     re-initialization from the default value)

    - ability to define multiple attributes at once using key => value pairs

    - fast lookup of whether or not a class has defined a certain attribute

    - attributes can be defined on objects on a per singleton basis as well

    - getters acts as setters if an argument is given to them

  all this in < 100 lines of code

HISTORY
  4.0.0
    - removed dependancy on, and bundle of, pervasives
    - faster.  as fast as normal method definition.
    - faster lookup for MyClass.attributes.include?('foobar')

  3.7.0
    small patch to use 'instance_variable_defined?' instead of defined?
    keyword
  
  3.5.0
    migrated to a pervasives based impl to attributes should work on any
    object - even blankslate objects

  3.3.0

    moved to an instance variable-less model using an module level closure for
    the attributes list

SAMPLES
  @samples