From: Mark Wilson <mwilson13@...>
Date: 2002-12-04T20:18:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Private Class Method Confusion

As I understand it, private methods can only be used by an object of 
the same class.  The store method is public, and is available to any 
sub-class of Test, whether or not that sub-class inherits the private 
clear method.  Therefore, to properly enforce the private constraint, 
Ruby probably should not let you do what you are trying to do.

But someone else should confirm this.

On Wednesday, December 4, 2002, at 06:02 AM, Robert McGovern wrote:

> I made a class which has simply class methods, the intention is that 
> the class will not be instaniated. Inside it, one method was made 
> private (using private_class_method) however when I try to call that 
> private method from another class method I get a NoMethodError 
> exception.
>
> I would have expected it to work as I am not attempting to call the 
> method from outside the class. Anyone any thoughts?
>
> Output is:
>
> >ruby class_method_test.rb
> class_method_test.rb:5:in `store': private method `clear' called for 
> Test:Class (NoMethodError)
> 	from class_method_test.rb:21
> >Exit code: 1
>
> Code:
>
> class Test
> 	@@value = nil
> 	
> 	def Test.store (x)
> 		Test.clear #line 5
> 		value = x
> 	end
> 	
> 	def Test.get_value
> 		x
> 	end
> 	
> 	def Test.clear
> 		value = nil
> 	end
> 	
> 	private_class_method :clear
>
> end #test
>
> Test.store(1) #line 21
> p Test.get_value
> Test.clear
>
>