Hey guys,

I need to loop through the instance variables of an object, and set them all to a value.  So far I have:

a.instance_variables.each do |var|
   #the next line I can't figure out
   a.instance_variable_get(var.to_s) = 5 #I don't know the terms to google to figure this out.  I want the variable var represents to be assigned a value, but I cannot figure out the syntax.
end

Background:  I actually have two identical (but unknown) objects, and I randomly assign a new instance of the same object properties from either of the two parents.  It's some genetics stuff I'm mocking up, but Ruby isn't my strong suit.  Thanks in advance.