Ruby: invoking methods based on criteria

I have the following code:

class Engine
  attr开发者_如何学编程_accessor :isRunning

  def initialize
    @isRunning = false
    @commands = ["left", "right", "brake", "accelerate", "quit"]
  end

  def start
    self.isRunning = true;
    while(self.isRunning)
      command = gets.chomp!

      if(@commands.include? command)
        puts "OK."
      else
        puts "> #{command} Unknown Command."
      end

      if(command=="quit") then
        self.stop
        puts "Quitting!"
      end
    end

  end

  def stop
    self.isRunning = false;
  end

end

As you can see, it is pretty simple, however, I am trying to figure out how to invoke methods based on criteria. If I would implement a bunch of methods, like methodOne and methodTwo inside the Engine class like this:

@commands = ["left", "right", "brake", "accelerate", "quit", "methodOne", "methodTwo"]

def methodOne

end

def methodTwo

end

def parseCommand(command)
   if(command=="methodOne") then
   self.methodOne
   end
   if(command=="methodTwo") then
   self.methodTwo
   end
end

could I invoke these methods minimalistically? Right now, I would have to write a big pile of if-statements, and I would rather omit its future maintenance if it can be done more elegantly.

use self.send("methodname")

You can read more about it in the Docs

Your code could look like:

class Engine
  # ...code ...
  def parseCommands(commands)
    commands.each{|c_command| self.send(c_command) }
  end 
  # ...code ...
end

@commands = ["left", "right", "brake", "accelerate", "quit", "methodOne", "methodTwo"]
engineInstance.parseCommands(@commands)