= Chunker =

=== Preface ===

Ruby provides an automatic constant called DATA, which is an IO object
that references all text in the current file under an !__END!__ token.

I find it convenient to use the !__END!__ area to store all sorts of
stuff, rather than have to worry about distributing separate files.

=== The problem ===

The DATA constant is determined from whatever ruby believes $0 to be.
It doesn't work inside of other required libraries, so you'll see stuff
like this all the time:

{{{
#!ruby
END = File.open( __FILE__ ).read.split( /^__END__/, 2 ).last
}}}

It works, but it's more work than I want to do.

=== A workaround ===

Chunker solves this by parsing !__END!__ tokens for you, and making it
available in the form of a 'DATA_END' constant.  It installs this
constant into the class that includes Chunker, so you can use it again
and again, assuming you use a different file for each class.

It also automatically parses out other things that look like tokens, so
you can easily have multiple, distinct documents all embedded into the
!__END!__ block.


=== Usage ===

There is no direct interface to Chunker.  Just include it from a
class to have that file's !__END!__ data blocks magically become DATA_*
IO constants within that class.

=== Example ===

This produces the string "Yep.\n".

{{{
#!ruby
require 'chunker'
class Foom
	include Chunker
end

puts Foom.new.class.const_get( :DATA_WICKED ).read

__END__
Stuff in the END block!
__WOW__
Ultimate success!
__WICKED__
Yep.
}}}


== Downloads ==

Get the latest gem [/chrome/site/chunker.gem here].  Or a [http://code.martini.nu/ruby-modules/archive/tip.tar.gz tarball].

== Development ==

You can also check out the source via [http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/ Mercurial] from the following uri:

{{{
% hg clone http://code.martini.nu/ruby-modules/
}}}