Metaprogramming Ruby 2

Resources

The Object Model

Everytime you write the same class in the same namespace, it is more of an extension to an existing class (or new class if called for first time).

Modules & Look ups

module M1
  def my_method
    # M1#my_method()
  end
end

class C
  include M1
end

class D < C; end

D.ancestors # => [D, C, M1, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

In Ruby 2, you can insert a module BELOW the including class rather than above:

class C2
  prepend M2
end

class D2 < C2; end

D2.ancestors # => [D, M2, C, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

So for multiple inclusions...

module M1; end

module M2
  include M1
end

module M3
  prepend M1
  include M2
end

M3.ancestors # => [M1, M3, M2]

The Kernel

Soe methods such as print can be called from anywhere. Every object has the print method. These are private instance methods of the module Kernel:

Kernel.private_instance_methods.grep(/^pr/) # => [:printf, :print, :proc]

Here is an interesting aside about access modifiers in Ruby:
Now, "protected" deserves more discussion. Those of you coming from Java or C++ have learned that in those languages, if a method is “private”, its visibility is restricted to the declaring class, and if the method is “protected”, it will be accessible to children of the class (classes that inherit from parent) or other classes in that package.
In Ruby, "private" visibility is similar to what "protected" is in Java. Private methods in Ruby are accessible from children. You can’t have truly private methods in Ruby; you can’t completely hide a method.
The difference between protected and private is subtle. If a method is protected, it may be called by any instance of the defining class or its subclasses. If a method is private, it may be called only within the context of the calling object---it is never possible to access another object instance's private methods directly, even if the object is of the same class as the caller. For protected methods, they are accessible from objects of the same class (or children).

Self

You can return self for the class instance. I believe this means that you can make classes chainable.

class A
  def my_method
    self
  end
end

Metaprogramming Ruby 2

Resources

The Object Model

Modules & Look ups

The Kernel

Self

Repository

Sections

Related