ruby alias method chain in ruby

gistfile1.rb

# The intention is to reduce boiler plate code by globally adding 
# behavior to any of the defined CLASS LEVEL methods.
#
# Chained.foo => "first I was like:  base foo, but then I was: chained foo
# Chained.foo_bar => "first I was like:  base foo_bar, but then I was: chained foo_bar
#
# This is useful for, say, finder methods that you want to add global behavior
# too.  Like if you want to always decorate a result set.
#
# This seems a bit crazy...ideas for improvement??
class Chained
  module Base
    def self.included(base)
      base.extend(ClassMethods)
    end
    
    module ClassMethods
      def foo
        "base foo"
      end

      def foo_bar
        "base foo_bar"
      end

    end
  end

  module PostExtension
    def self.included(base)
      base.extend(ClassMethods)
    end
    
    module ClassMethods
      def self.extended(base)
        base.methods.grep(/foo/).each do |method_name|
          puts "found method: #{method_name}"
          self.send(:define_method, method_name) do
            "first I was like:  #{super}, but then I was: chained #{method_name}"
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
  
  include Base
  include PostExtension
end

I don't have any particularly insightful input on how you could make this specific code better, but I wonder if the concept you're going for is already captured under the Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) umbrella. If you haven't already, I would look into AOP frameworks for ruby. I can't vouch for any in particular, but Aquarium ranks high on Google.

I will give these a look, thanks.

…

On Apr 26, 2012, at 4:29 PM, Justin ***@***.*** wrote: I don't have any particularly insightful input on how you could make this specific code better, but I wonder if the concept you're going for is already captured under the [Aspect-Oriented Programming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect-oriented_programming) (AOP) umbrella. If you haven't already, I would look into AOP frameworks for ruby. I can't vouch for any in particular, but [Aquarium](http://aquarium.rubyforge.org/) ranks high on Google. --- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://gist.github.com/2502669