is it possible to turn a private method into a public one?

[Lex Williams]

hey guys !

could a private/protected method be turned into a public one ?

 

[Thomas B.]

hey guys !

could a private/protected method be turned into a public one ?

class K
private
def m
end
# now m is private
public :m
# and now it is public
end

TPR.

 

[Lex Williams]

class K
private
def m
end
# now m is private
public :m
# and now it is public
end

TPR.

Thank you ! This will come in handy !

 

[Xavier Noria]

could a private/protected method be turned into a public one ?

Sure.

On the one hand you can circumvect access control with Object#send:

object.sendmethod_name_even_if_private, ...)

And yes, you indeed can change the visibility:

class C
private
def foo
puts "it works"
end
end

c = C.new
begin
c.foo
rescue
puts $!
C.sendpublic, :foo)
c.foo
end
# =>
# private method `foo' called for #<C:0x22013c>
# it works

That public is similar to the private call in C, only done out of the
class and via #send because it is private.

It is interesting to note that we've been able to call the method on
an object that was created when #foo was private, as the raised
exception proves. That's because method calls are resolved on a per
call basis due to the dynamic nature of Ruby.