From: Ben Bleything <ben@...>
Date: 2007-08-02T07:07:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Private methods not so private?

On Thu, Aug 02, 2007, Frank Meyer wrote:
> class Test
>  private
>  def print_hello
>   puts "Hello everyone!"
>  end
> end
> 
> t = Test.new
> t.send( "print_hello" )
> 
> This program runs just fine and prints "Hello everyone!".
> 
> Is this behaviour to be expected?

Yes.  send bypasses protection levels, for reasons I'm not really clear
on.  If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that what you send is
eval'ed inside the context of the object, thereby making self the
receiver, but that's a total guess.

Test.new.print_hello will cause the error you expect.

As a sidenote, upgrade your ruby ;)

Ben