From: Ilias Lazaridis <ilias@...>
Date: 2011-06-10T03:40:27+09:00
Subject: CORE - Literal Instantiation breaks Object Model

class String
  alias_method :orig_initialize, :initialize
  def initialize(val)
    orig_initialize "OBSERVED: " + val
  end
  def my_method_test
    print self.inspect, " test\n"
  end
end

oo_string = String.new("The OO String")
li_string = "The Literal String"

print "Class: ", oo_string.class, " - content: ", oo_string, "\n"
print "Class: ", li_string.class, " - content: ", li_string, "\n"
oo_string.my_method_test
li_string.my_method_test

#OUTPUT
#=> Class: String - content: OBSERVED: The OO String
#=> Class: String - content: The Literal String
#=> "OBSERVED: The OO String" test
#=> "The Literal String" test

-

The behaviour of the class String has been altered, whilst using the
standard mechanisms of the Object Model.

To my huge surprise, although the li_string has been instantiated as
an object of class String, the new initialize method was not called.

This is essentially a defect, as the consistency of the Object Model
breaks.

The statement "Everything is an Object" becomes invalid, because e.g.
a string object instantiated from a literal behaves differently that a
string object instantiated normally via new() (although they share the
same class, and thus should behave the same).

My understanding is, that this is a know-issue and a trade-off due to
performance issues.

The questions are:

b) Is there any way to track (intercept) the instantiation of objects
(especially those instantiated from literals)
  1) without a C-level extension
  2) with a C-level extension

The interception can be post instantiation.

Underlying Requirement:

Ability to track instantiation of every object within the system.

.

--
http://lazaridis.com