From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-09-28T16:36:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Object private methods

daz wrote:
> Paolino wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>>   I noticed that Object private methods are available everywhere.
>> This I noticed exploring 'main' instance defining a method
>>
>> Can I have some explanation on this form of globalizing ?
>>
>
>
> It's useful to have some methods available almost anywhere ...
>
>    $_ = 'A B C'
>    puts split   #  there are two of the private methods
>    #-> A
>    #-> B
>    #-> C
>
> ... but not *everywhere* ...
>
>    puts 3.split
>
>    #-> ... private method `split' called for 3:Fixnum (NoMethodError)
>
> There is no 'split' method for Fixnum.

Not exactly: Fixnum inherits split from Kernel and it's just not
accessible with a receiver because it's private:

09:24:18 [Oracle]: ruby -e '$_="a,b,c"; p 1.instance_eval { split(/,/) };
p 1.send(:split, /,/)'
["a", "b", "c"]
["a", "b", "c"]

> Fixnum inherits from Object and a 'split' was found but, fortunately,
> a sensible error message was produced before disaster struck.

Well you could argue about the sensibility (?) of the error message.
Privacy is just a means to make it *look* like a global function.

Kind regards

    robert