I've seen this a lot in Ruby (started using Ruby for the first time a couple years ago):
class MyAwesomeClass
another_method
def initialize; end
end
And I can't get my head around what type of method another_method is...
Looking at examples, it's sometimes declared as a class method, but usually you call class methods in your code like this:
AnotherClass.another_method
And most importantly you call your methods regardless if they are from another class, module, or inherited class inside another method of your class you use them. For example:
module SomeModule
def some_method; end
end
class AnotherClass
private
def another_method; end
end
class YetAnotherClass
self.yet_another_method; end
end
class MyAwesomeClass < AnotherClass
include SomeModule
def initialize
some_method # method from my included module
another_method # method inherited from AnotherClass
YetAnotherClass.yet_another_method # class method called directly
end
end
So what are these methods that can be called at the top of a class and NOT called inside of another method as my examples above?
Are you able to just call class methods inside another class (that it inherits from) outside of your method calls?
I can't get my head around what type of method another_method is...
There is only one type of method in Ruby: every method in Ruby is an instance method of some module. There is no other type of method.
We may sometimes talk about "class methods" or "singleton methods", but that is just a convenient way of talking about a particular way to use methods. The methods themselves are no different.
Every method in Ruby is an instance method of some module. The question is simply: which module?
We are sometimes talking about class methods, but class methods don't really exist. Class methods are simply singleton methods of an object that happens to be an instance of the Class class.
There is absolutely no difference between
Foo = ''
def Foo.bar; end
and
class Foo; end
def Foo.bar; end
and
module Foo; end
def Foo.bar; end
We call the first one a "singleton method", the second one a "class method", and the third one a "module function", but there is actually no difference between the three. The only difference is that the first object is an instance of the String class, the second object is an instance of the Class class, and the third object is an instance of the Module class, that's it.
Actually, I must confess something: I lied. I wrote that class methods are simply singleton methods of an object that happens to be an instance of the Class class, but in reality … singleton methods don't exist either.
A singleton method is simply a boring old normal instance method of the singleton class.
There is no difference between
foo = ''
def foo.bar; end
and
foo = ''
class << foo
def bar; end
end
There you have it: singleton methods are actually just instance methods of the singleton class, class methods are actually just instance methods of the singleton class of an object that is an instance of the Class class, module functions are actually just instance methods of the singleton class of an object that is an instance of the Module class.
It's just that "instance method of the singleton class of an object that is an instance of the Class class" is annoying to say and write all the time, so we say "class method" instead, knowing full well that there is no such thing.
Looking at examples, it's sometimes declared as a class method, but usually you call class methods in your code like this:
AnotherClass.another_method
Again, there is no such thing as a class method. There is exactly one kind of method, and they are always called the same way:
receiver.method(args)
If the receiver is self, then you can leave it out, and if you have no arguments, you can leave them out, too.
And most importantly you call your methods regardless if they are from another class, module, or inherited class inside another method of your class you use them.
That is not true.
In fact, in your own example, you are calling two methods outside of a method body: Module#private and Module#include, and you seem to have no trouble with those. Other methods that I am sure you have already called outside of a method body are Module#attr_accessor, Kernel#require, or Kernel#puts. In fact, in simple scripts, there is often not a single method definition body at all.
So what are these methods that can be called at the top of a class and NOT called inside of another method as my examples above?
They are instance methods just like any other instance methods, there is absolutely nothing special about them.
Are you able to just call class methods inside another class (that it inherits from) outside of your method calls?
Since class methods don't exist, and these are simply instance methods just like every other instance method, the method lookup algorithm is of course also just the method lookup algorithm for instance methods:
Start with the private internal hidden __klass__ pointer of the receiver. If you can't find the method there …
Get the private internal hidden __superklass__ pointer and repeat.
And that's it. (Yes, okay, there is a tiny bit more to it: if you come to a point where there is no __superklass__ pointer, then you try again with method_missing and the name of the method as an argument, and if you also cannot find that, then you raise a NoMethodError.)
So, let's try that in your example:
class MyAwesomeClass
another_method
end
Okay, first off: what is the receiver? Well, if no receiver is given, then the receiver is always implicitly self. Now, what is self here?
A ha! That is actually the most important question in Ruby, always. At any point in Ruby, you must always know what self is.
Well, we know that inside of a method body, self is the receiver of the message send. So, we can guess: what would make the most sense for self inside of a class definition. The class itself, of course! Let's test that:
what_is_self = class MyAwesomeClass
self
end
p what_is_self
# MyAwesomeClass
Well, looks like we're right. Okay, we know the receiver of the message send is MyAwesomeClass, so what is the first step in our algorithm? We get the private internal hidden __klass__ pointer.
We cannot actually do that in Ruby (it is a private internal hidden implementation detail of the Ruby implementation). But let me assure you that is pretty much always going to be the singleton class. (There are some objects which cannot have singleton classes, and some Ruby implementations optimize the creation of singleton classes so that they are only created when needed, but for all intents and purposes, we can assume that the __klass__ pointer is always the singleton class.)
We look inside the singleton class, and we find no definition of the method another_method. So, we move to the second step of the algorithm: we get the __superklass__ of the singleton class.
The __superklass__ of the singleton class is usually going to be the class of the object. So, in this case, the object is MyAwesomeClass, which is a class, so the class of MyAwesomeClass and the __superklass__ of the singleton class is going to be Class.
Again, we look inside Class and we don't find another_method. Ergo, we get Class's __superklass__, which is Module. We also don't find another_method here, so we move on to Object, which also doesn't have another_method.
Now, it gets interesting again, because Object's __superklass__ pointer is actually Kernel and not BasicObject as you might have thought. (More precisely, it is an include class which shares its method table with the Kernel module, since Kernel is not a class at all and thus cannot be a superclass.)
Kernel also doesn't have a method named another_method, so we get Kernel's __superklass__ (again, technically we are talking about an include class that proxies Kernel and not Kernel itself), which is BasicObject. Finally, BasicObject does not have a __superklass__.
Which means we start aaaaaaaaaaaall the way back from step #1 again, but this time as-if you had written
class MyAwesomeClass
method_missing(:another_method)
end
We do the whole song-and-dance again, and we also never find a method until we get to the very top, to BasicObject, which has a method_missing that roughly looks like this:
class BasicObject
def method_missing(meth, *args)
raise NoMethodError, "undefined method `#{meth}' for #{inspect}", meth, args, receiver: self
end
end
So, if you want your call to another_method to not fail, it needs to be defined anywhere along the whole chain we just walked up:
In MyAwesomeClass's singleton class
In a module that MyAwesomeClass extends
In Class
In a module that Class includes
Or in a module included by that module
In Module
In a module that Module includes
Or in a module included by that module
In Object
In Kernel
Or another module that Object includes
Or in a module that Kernel includes
In BasicObject
In a module that BasicObject includes
Or in a module included by that module
Or maybe the Ruby implementation you are using has an implementation-specific superclass of BasicObject (e.g. MacRuby has Objective-C's NSObject as the superclass of BasicObject)
To illustrate difference between different type of methods, consider this example:
class Foo
puts 'method called outside of method'
def initialize
puts 'initialize called'
end
def instanse_method
puts 'instance method called'
end
def self.clazz_method
puts 'class method called'
end
end
Foo
foo = Foo.new
foo.instanse_method
Foo.clazz_method
What will be the output?
method called outside of method
initialize called
instance method called
class method called
So what are these methods that can be called at the top of a class and NOT called inside of another method as my examples above?
As you can see, any method can be called before initialize method. It's executed when class is loaded.
Just calling
Foo
would be sufficient enough to output:
method called outside of method
(but notice that it was not called multiple times)
Looking at examples, it's sometimes declared as a class method, but usually you call class methods in your code like this: AnotherClass.another_method
It's like static function in PHP. In my example, it's Foo#clazz_method.
And most importantly you call your methods regardless if they are from another class, module, or inherited class inside another method of your class you use them
Usually, you have to include a file that define another class before using its method. But most frameworks like Ruby on Rails, have already built-in autoloading system, so it looks like it's working magically without explicit require or include. But there are times when RoR does not know where your custom classes are. In this case, you have to require the file explicitly before you use it. Well, usually in the beginning of the file.
It'll be easier to understand by looking at it in action.
# Step 1
# Run this in IRB
class MyClass
def self.another_method
puts "Executed when class is loaded to memory"
end
end
# Step 2
# Now when you run the following in IRB after that, its going to execute the
# class method which was defined in its parent class (MyClass)
class MyAwesomeClass < MyClass
another_method # Executed ONCE when the class is loaded to memory for the first
def initialize; end
end
# Now if you instantiate MyAwesomeClass though, it will not print the same as of
# Step 2 as class method :another_method already has been executed when class
# was loaded
awesome1 = MyAwesomeClass.new
The body of a class will be interpreted and executed sequentially & behaves much like you'd expect it inside an instance method. Try putting a puts "Hello World" in the body of your class definition like so:
class MyClass
# Executes when the class is defined in IRB(Loaded to memory)
puts "Hello World"
end
I'm reading 'metaprogramming in ruby'
its such an EXCELLENT book. Seriously, it talks about stuff that I never hear mentioned elsewhere.
I have a few specific questions however about objects (I'm in the first few chapters)
I understand that the RubyGems gem installs the method 'gem' to the module Kernel so that it shows up on every object. Is there a reason they didnt put it into the Object class?
He talks about how when ruby looks for the method it always goes right then up. What exactly does 'up' mean? I see it in the diagram, its just that I dont really understand the purpose of 'up'. he doesnt explain that part much.
What is the point of the Object class? How come those methods cant be just placed into Class? If every object belongs to a class (even if its Class), then what is the point of object, basicobject, and kernel?
String, Array, blah blah are obviously an instance of Class. Class is also an instance of itself. So if Class is an instance of Class.... how does it also inherit from Object? Where in the code does it relates to BOTH Class and Object?
I know kernel contains methods such as puts that can be used everywhere, and this relates to question 1, but why cant they just condense it and put it all into Object... where it would seem everything inherits from object anyway
Both would work, but typically methods on Object should only be methods that deal with a particular object. Puting things in the Kernel module are less about about object and more global.
I assume it means "up the inheritance chain". So it looks for the method on the child class, then on that classes parent class until it finds one or runs out of parent classes.
Object is the base class of all objects, naturally (For ruby 1.8 at least). The crazy part is that a class is actually an instance of the Class class. (you follow that?) So adding instance methods to Class would add methods to class objects, but not instances of those classes.
Nearly everything in ruby is an object. Class.superclass is actually Module (which is like a class you can't instantiate) and Module.superclass returns Object. So Class < Module < Object is the inheritance chain if the Class class. (For ruby 1.8 at least)
More convention than anything. Since Object can get rather HUGE, it's customary to put things into modules and then combine those modules later. If the method doesn't deal with an instance of an object directly as self then the method doesn't belong directly in Object. More global non-object instance methods like gem go in the Kernel module to signify that they are simply methods available everywhere.
Some more about class objects and inheritance...
class Foo < Bar
def hi
puts 'Hi!'
end
end
What this does is really quite awesome. It defines a class object, of course. Now this class object is configured to have a name Foo, a parent class Bar and a method hi. This info is sort of like this class object's meta data.
Now the class object Foo itself is an instance of Class. But Foo defines a class that inherits from Bar. The Class class defines a data structure to store this meta data about a class.
You can think of the Class class sorta kinda being defined like this:
class Class < Module
# fictional method called on class creation
def set_meta_data(name, superclass, methods)
#name = name
#superclass = superclass
#methods = methods
end
# fictional way in which an instance might be created
def new
instance = Object.new
instance.superclass = #superclass
instance.addMethods(#methods)
instance
end
end
So a class object itself would inherit from Class but it would create objects that do not.
Thinking of classes as objects can be a bit mind bending in this way, but this also why ruby is awesome.
For 1 and 5, pseudo-keyword commands tend to go into Kernel rather than Object.
For 2, it makes sense for sub-classes to be "down" relative to their parent class (sub literally meaning "beneath"). Therefore if you're heading for a parent class and its ancestors, you have to go "up".
For 3, an object object is not an instance of Class, it is an instance of Object.
For 4, what's wrong with something being an instance of Class and inheriting from Object? All classes inherit from Object.
Unless I've missed the entries, I can't find include or extend in the Ruby-Doc.org documentation or in Ruby's keyword list. I can find obj.extend but not the extend statement used in a class definition e.g.
# add module Foo's methods as class methods of TestClass
class TestClass
extend Foo
end
or
# add module Foo's methods as instance methods of TestClass
class TestClass
include Foo
end
As a language construct, if that's the proper term, what are include and extend and where are they defined?
It would be nice to understand just how these two statements are implemented in the Ruby language. Thanks.
extend is an Object method, a convenience method for extend_object (more or less).
include is in Module, a wrapper around append_features.
include is a private method of the Module class and extend is a method in the Object class
It looks like const_missing is an instance method of Object. If so, why doesn't this code work?
module Extensions
def const_missing(c)
puts c
end
end
class Object
include Extensions
end
NonExistent.new
In order to get it to function correctly, I have to change def const_missing to def Object.const_missing. Why?
This is just a consequence of the way method calls are resolved in Ruby.
First, singleton methods are checked. Then instance methods of the class, followed by the ancestors (which will be the included modules, then superclasses with their included modules).
So you could define Object.const_missing directly, or include your Module in the singleton class of Object:
class << Object
include Extensions
end
NonExistent # => prints "NonExistent"
You could also monkeypatch Module#const_missing.
I'm new to ruby metaprogramming, and I see people metaprogramming code in different places, like class Object, class Module, module Kernel and "nothing" (ie, out of a class/module definition block).
E.g.: I'm creating a c_attr_accessor method to access class variables, and I'm not sure where I must put the code, since it works in any of those cases.
How to decide what place is more appropriate to put a new global code?
Each of these examples fall into different cases.
If you are writing methods that apply to all objects, then you open the Object class so all objects can access it. If you are writing methods that apply to all modules, then you open Module. Whenever you open a class to add methods, the methods should apply to all instances of the class and nothing else.
Extending the Kernel module is different: people do this to add methods that should be available to every scope, but not really as methods to be explicitly called on an object, by making them private.
When you are outside of any class or module statement, you are in the scope of the main object, and methods you define default to being private methods of Object. This is fine for small or simple programs, but you will eventually want to use proper modules as namespaces to organize your methods.
As a final note on the subject, you always need to be sure that you really want methods you add to built-in classes and modules to be available to everything in your application, including external inclusions because they all share the built-ins.
Now to apply this to answer your question. Because you are defining a method that creates accessors for class variables, you should put it in the class Class as it applies to all classes and nothing else. Finally, you will likely only use it in class definitions (within a class statement), so we should make it private:
class Class
private
def c_attr_accessor(name)
# ...
end
end
class User
c_attr_accessor :class_variable_name
# ...
end
If you don't really need it in every class (maybe just a few), then create a "mixin module" to extend every class that needs this feature:
module ClassVariableAccessor
private
def c_attr_accessor(name)
# ...
end
end
class User
extend ClassVariableAccessor
c_attr_accessor :class_variable_name
# ...
end
Note that you are using Object#extend to add c_attr_accessor only to the object User (remember that classes are objects; you will hear that a lot if you are new to Ruby metaprogramming).
There is another way to implement the last example, which works by explicitly extending its base class through the Module#included(base_class) "hook method" called whenever the module included, and the base class is passed to base_class:
module ClassVariableAccessor
def included(base_class)
base_class.extend ClassMethods
end
module ClassMethods
def c_attr_accessor(name)
# ...
end
end
end
class User
include ClassVariableAccessor
c_attr_accessor :class_variable_name
# ...
end
I recommend this last solution because it is the most general and uses a simple interface that should not need to be updated. I hope this is not too much!
Have you tried looking up where the normal attribute accessors are defined? I'd either define it in the same class/module, or create my own module in which all my new methods go.