Attribute

Introduction

A class that publishes a setter for an instance variable invites client classes to become too intimate with its inner workings, and in particular with its representation of state.

The same holds to a lesser extent for getters, but Reek doesn't flag those.

Example

Given:

class Klass
  attr_accessor :dummy
end

Reek would emit the following warning:

reek test.rb

test.rb -- 1 warning:
  [2]:Attribute: Klass#dummy is a writable attribute

Support in Reek

This detector raises a warning for every public attr_writer, attr_accessor, and attr with the writable flag set to true.

Reek does not raise warnings for read-only attributes.

Configuration

Attribute supports only the Basic Smell Options.