Using inheritance with multiple files in Ruby

Question

I am new to Ruby . I have a question with respect to using Inheritence in Ruby .

I have a class called as Doggy inside a file named Doggy.rb

class Doggy
  def bark
    puts "Vicky is barking"
  end
end

I have written another class named Puppy in another file named puppy.rb

class Puppy < Doggy
end

puts Doggy.new.bark

I am getting this Error:

Puppy.rb:1:in `<main>': uninitialized constant Doggy (NameError)

Is it mandatory to have these classes (Doggy and Puppy ) inside a single file only?

Edited

As per the suggestions , i have tried using require and require_relative as shown , but still i am getting below Error

Puppy.rb:1:in `<main>': uninitialized constant Doggy (NameError)

    class Puppy < Doggy
    end
    require_relative 'Doggy.rb'
    puts Doggy.new.bark

Answer 1

Changes to be done in puppy.rb file
Assuming both files are in the same directory, you're expected to require the file in the following way:

doggy.rb

class Doggy
  def bark
    puts "Vicky is barking"
  end
end

puppy.rb

require File.expand_path('../doggy.rb', __FILE__)
class Puppy < Doggy
end

puts Doggy.new.bark

Answer 2

You should require file with Doggy class in it from file where Puppy is. Put

require './doggy'

or, if you are on ruby-1.9:

require_relative 'doggy'

in puppy.rb (assuming file names are doggy.rb and puppy.rb).

Answer 3

Also, in addition to what everyone else has said, puts Dog.new.bark will always fail, because your class is not called Dog, it's Doggy. Beware.

Answer 4

Not necessary, you have to require the file where Doggy is declared. You can use require or require_relative.

Then, anyway make sure you use the name you declared: Doggy and not Dog.