From: Harry Ohlsen <harryo@...>
Date: 2002-08-08T12:14:57+09:00
Subject: Redefining send()

I tried to write a small piece of code as a wrapper around send(), but for 
some reason it appears not to be called.

I did a search in the Ruby-Talk archive for this, but the only two entries I 
found seemed to imply that you can't do it.

If this has been discussed in more detail, can someone point me at some 
specific entries?

I'm guessing that send() is considered a special case and ignored, so that  
some kind of infinite recursion doesn't happen.

In any case, I'd be interested to know why it doesn't work.  Can someone shed 
some light on this?

My code looked like ...

   class Fred
       alias old_send send

       def send(name, *args)
           $stderr.puts "send('#{name}')"
           old_send(name, *args)
       end

       # ...
   end

Hence, I was expecting that when any method of Fred was called, I'd see the 
message, and then the real code would be called.  As I say, I never see the 
message, so I assume the re-definition has been ignored ... or maybe I'm 
missing the point entirely!