From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2008-11-26T16:41:41+09:00
Subject: Re: Reflection method name order

Alle Wednesday 26 November 2008, Greg Willits ha scritto:
> Can I depend on .methods returning methods in the order they are written
> in the class source code?
>
> I would assume Unit::Test counts on that, and playing around with this
> test seems to indicate that order is retained, but not sure if I'm just
> getting lucky. (Seems weird that order is retained, yet the names are
> dispersed among all the other inherited methods of the class, rather
> than grouped at the end or something.)
>
> class Matchers
>   def match_first
>   end
>   def match_second
>   end
>   def match_another
>   end
>   def match_last_one
>   end
> end
>
> x = Matchers.new
>
> matchers = []
> x.methods.each do |method_name|
>   matchers << method_name if method_name.scan(/^match_/)[0]
> end
>
> p matchers
> # => ["match_first", "match_second", "match_another", "match_last_one"]
>
> Thx
>
> -- gw

I don't think you can depend on it. Look at this:

class C
 def x;end
 def y;end
 def a;end
 def z;end
end
p C.new.methods.grep(/^\w$/)
#=> ["y", "x", "z", "a"]

This is with ruby 1.8.7 and linux. By the way, why do you think Test::Unit 
relies on the definition order of the methods?

Stefano