From: Colin Bartlett <colinb2r@...>
Date: 2012-07-09T11:11:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Can you call private methods with explicit receivers?

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Jingjing Duan <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
> My understanding is the answer is no, you can't call private methods
> with explicit receivers, even self. See
> http://www.skorks.com/2010/04/ruby-access-control-are-private-and-protected-methods-only-a-guideline/
>
> However, the following example seems to counter that.
>
> class A
>   def m2
>     self.m1 = "hello"
>     self.m3
>   end
>
>   private
>
>   def m1=(value)
>     @m1 = value
>     puts "assigning #{value} to @m1"
>   end
>
>   def m3
>     puts "inside m3"
>   end

Picking up Bartosz Dziewoński's reference to #send, also note this:

A.new.m2 rescue puts $!.inspect
A.new.m3 rescue puts $!.inspect
A.new.send(:m3) rescue puts $!.inspect

produces:

assigning hello to @m1
#<NoMethodError: private method `m3' called for #<A:0x9ba3a0 @m1="hello">>
#<NoMethodError: private method `m3' called for #<A:0x9b9ac0>>
inside m3