Define a initialize method for a Ruby FFI::Struct?

Question

Currently, I have a RUby FFI Struct:

class Color < FFI::Struct
  layout :red, :uchar, :green, :uchar, :blue, :uchar
end

Which needs to be created like t his:

color = Color.new
color[:red] = 255
color[:green] = 0
color[:blue] = 0

Can I define an initialize method on a Struct so that I can just do this:

color = Color.new(255, 0, 0)

I have tried the following which does work, but is it going to bite me down the road somehow?

class Color < FFI::Struct
layout, :red, :uchar, :green, :uchar, :blue, :uchar
  def initialize(red, green, blue)
    self[:red] = red
    self[:green] = green
    self[:blue] = blue
  end
end

Answer 1

The source for FFI::Struct (https://github.com/ffi/ffi/blob/master/lib/ffi/struct.rb) doesn't define an initialize method, so you aren't overriding anything. This means that what you're doing should be fine.

If you wanted to be extra safe, you could always define a new class method on Color instead:

class Color < FFI::Struct
  layout :red, :uchar, :green, :uchar, :blue, :uchar
  def self.from_rgb(red, green, blue)
    color = new
    color[:red] = red
    color[:green] = green
    color[:blue] = blue
    color
  end
end