class Login
  def initialize(user, domain, pass)
    @username = user
    @domain = domain
    @pass = pass

    #check if gmail or other domain
    gmail_test =  @domain.include? "gmail.com"
    if gmail_test == true 
      @imap = Net::IMAP.new('imap.gmail.com',993,true,nil,false)
      @imap.login(@username + "@" + @domain, @pass)
    else
      @imap = Net::IMAP.new("mail." + @domain)
      @imap.authenticate('LOGIN', @username + "@" + @domain, @pass)
    end
    return self
  end

  #enable mailbox select    
  def mailbox(box)
    @mailbox = box 
    @mailbox_array = @imap.list('','*').collect{ |mailbox| mailbox.name } #create array of mailboxes
    @matching_mailbox = @mailbox_array.grep(/#{@mailbox}/i) #search for mailbox along list
    if @matching_mailbox.empty? == true #if no results open INBOX
       @mailbox = "INBOX"
       @imap.examine(@mailbox)
    else  
       @imap.examine(@matching_mailbox.first.to_s) #if multiple results, select first and examine
       @mailbox = @matching_mailbox.first.to_s
    end 
    return self   
  end    
end​

I want to be able to say:

Login.new("user", "domain", "pass").mailbox("in") 

and then something like:

class Stat
  def received_today()
    #emails received today
    @today = Date.today
    @received_today = @imap.search(["SINCE", @today.strftime("%d-%b-%Y")]).count.to_s
    puts @domain + " " + @mailbox.to_s + ": " + @received_today + " -- Today\n\n" #(" + @today.strftime("%d-%b-%Y") + ")
  end
end

And be able to call

Stat.new.received_today and have it not throw a "no method search" error. Again, the other question contains pseudo_code and a high level explanation of how to use an accessor method to do this, but I can't implement it regardless of how many hours I've tried (been up all night)...

All I can think is that I am doing this wrong at a high level, and the stat calculation needs to be a method for the Login class, not a separate class. I really wanted to make it a separate class, however, so I could more easily compartmentalize... Thanks!

Another approach that works and doesn't require defining get_var methods:

b.instance_variable_get("@imap") # where b = class instance of login