From: Eric Mahurin <eric_mahurin@...>
Date: 2005-08-30T23:10:16+09:00
Subject: Re: Method behaves differently when called using #send

--- James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:

> On Aug 30, 2005, at 4:05 AM, Eric Mahurin wrote:
> 
> > * For almost every case I use #send/#__send__, I use it to
> > bypass encapsulation to call a protected/private method.
> 
> Are you sure you've set the method's scope correctly in the
> first  
> place then?  To me, this sounds like a problem.

Usually, I use it to access protected/private methods of core
classes, not under my control.  There have been a few cases
where I use it to access a method that I don't want being used
outside of my package but want access within the package.  But,
even for those cases I usually end up deciding to make them
public, not documenting them, and prefixing the name with "_".

> On the flip side, I'm pretty sure I've never used send() for
> anything  
> but to call a method I didn't know the name of until runtime.
>  As you  
> noted, we already have instance_eval() for direct access.

So you use #send for calling a variable method and
#instance_eval for bypassing protection.  I use
#method/Method#call for calling a variable method (usually
iteratively) and #send for bypassing protection.  To me #send
seems cleaner for bypassing protection because you don't need a
block (and possible inefficiency that comes with it).

I wonder what the general preferences are for bypassing method
protection: #send vs. #instance_eval.




		
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