Dynamically defining instance method within an instance method - ruby-on-rails

I have a several classes, each of which define various statistics.
class MonthlyStat
attr_accessor :cost, :size_in_meters
end
class DailyStat
attr_accessor :cost, :weight
end
I want to create a decorator/presenter for a collection of these objects, that lets me easily access aggregate information about each collection, for example:
class YearDecorator
attr_accessor :objs
def self.[]= *objs
new objs
end
def initialize objs
self.objs = objs
define_helpers
end
def define_helpers
if o=objs.first # assume all objects are the same
o.instance_methods.each do |method_name|
# sums :cost, :size_in_meters, :weight etc
define_method "yearly_#{method_name}_sum" do
objs.inject(0){|o,sum| sum += o.send(method_name)}
end
end
end
end
end
YearDecorator[mstat1, mstat2].yearly_cost_sum
Unfortunately define method isn't available from within an instance method.
Replacing this with:
class << self
define_method "yearly_#{method_name}_sum" do
objs.inject(0){|o,sum| sum += o.send(method_name)}
end
end
...also fails because the variables method_name and objs which are defined in the instance are no longer available. Is there an idomatic was to accomplish this in ruby?

(EDITED: I get what you're trying to do now.)
Well, I tried the same approaches that you probably did, but ended up having to use eval
class Foo
METHOD_NAMES = [:foo]
def def_foo
METHOD_NAMES.each { |method_name|
eval <<-EOF
def self.#{method_name}
\"#{method_name}\".capitalize
end
EOF
}
end
end
foo=Foo.new
foo.def_foo
p foo.foo # => "Foo"
f2 = Foo.new
p f2.foo # => "undefined method 'foo'..."
I myself will admit it's not the most elegant solution (may not even be the most idiomatic) but I've run into similar situations in the past where the most blunt approach that worked was eval.

I'm curious what you're getting for o.instance_methods. This is a class-level method and isn't generally available on instances of objects, which from what I can tell, is what you're dealing with here.
Anyway, you probably are looking for method_missing, which will define the method dynamically the first time you call it, and will let you send :define_method to the object's class. You don't need to redefine the same instance methods every time you instantiate a new object, so method_missing will allow you to alter the class at runtime only if the called method hasn't already been defined.
Since you're expecting the name of a method from your other classes surrounded by some pattern (i.e., yearly_base_sum would correspond to a base method), I'd recommend writing a method that returns a matching pattern if it finds one. Note: this would NOT involve making a list of methods on the other class - you should still rely on the built-in NoMethodError for cases when one of your objects doesn't know how to respond to message you send it. This keeps your API a bit more flexible, and would be useful in cases where your stats classes might also be modified at runtime.
def method_missing(name, *args, &block)
method_name = matching_method_name(name)
if method_name
self.class.send :define_method, name do |*args|
objs.inject(0) {|obj, sum| sum + obj.send(method_name)}
end
send name, *args, &block
else
super(name, *args, &block)
end
end
def matching_method_name(name)
# ... this part's up to you
end

Related

Pass a symbol to a method and call the corresponding method

In a Rails controller you can pass a symbol to the layout method that corresponds to a method in you controller that will return the layout name like this:
layout :my_method
def my_method
'layout_1'
end
I want to have a similar functionality to likewise pass a symbol to my classes method and that class should call the corresponding function and use its return value, like this
myClass.foo :my_method
def my_method
'layout_1'
end
I've read posts[1] that tell me I need to pass
myClass.foo(method(:my_method))
which I find ugly and inconvenient. How is rails here different allowing to pass just the symbol without any wrapper? Can this be achieved like Rails does it?
[1] How to implement a "callback" in Ruby?
If you want to only pass a :symbol into the method, then you have to make assumptions about which method named :symbol is the one you want called for you. Probably it's either defined in the class of the caller, or some outer scope. Using the binding_of_caller gem, we can snag that information easily and evaluate the code in that context.
This surely has security implications, but those issues are up to you! :)
require 'binding_of_caller'
class Test
def foo(sym)
binding.of_caller(1).eval("method(:#{sym})").call
end
end
class Other
def blork
t = Test.new
p t.foo(:bar)
p t.foo(:quxx)
end
def bar
'baz'
end
end
def quxx
'quxx'
end
o = Other.new
o.blork
> "baz"
> "quxx"
I still don't understand, what is author asking about. He's saying about "callbacks", but only wrote how he wants to pass parameter to some method. What that method(foo) should do - i have no idea.
So I tried to predict it's implementation. On class initialising it gets the name of method and create private method, that should be called somewhere under the hood. It possible not to create new method, but store method name in class variable and then call it somewhere.
module Foo
extend ActiveSupport::Concern
module ClassMethods
def foo(method_name)
define_method :_foo do
send method_name
end
end
end
end
class BaseClass
include Foo
end
class MyClass < BaseClass
foo :my_method
private
def my_method
"Hello world"
end
end
MyClass.new.send(:_foo)
#=> "Hello world"
And really, everything is much clearer when you're not just wondering how it works in rails, but viewing the source code: layout.rb

Wrap Ruby methods at run-time to intercept method calls

I have a parent class that is similar to ActiveRecord, and I'm trying to open the class on load in our test suite. I want to wrap the initialize method so that it maintains a list of all of the subclasses that are initialized so I can make sure that all of the data for those classes is cleaned up between tests. Running a full wipe between tests winds up being too inefficient (plus I'm just interested in what the code would like to do this is).
My goal is to insert a new initialize method in the inheritance tree and just call super. All the while maintaining some list of all of the instantiated classes inside the parent class.
My attempt so far:
class NewActiveRecord
##__instantiated_classes = Set.new
def initialize(*args)
##__instantiated_classes.add(self.class)
super *args
end
def self.reset_tracking
##__instantiated_classes = Set.new
end
def self.get_instantiated_classes
##__instantiated_classes.to_a
end
end
class ActiveSupport::TestCase
teardown do
NewActiveRecord.get_instantiated_classes.each {|c| c.destroy_all}
NewActiveRecord.reset_tracking
end
end
Basically I want to wrap all methods that are called on subclasses of some parent to send their class to some predefined object their class
Did some exploring today and came up with the following solution. I'm still not sure how to unspy something yet though:
module Spy
def self.on_instance_method(mod, method, &block)
mod.class_eval do
# Stash the old method
old_method = instance_method(method)
# Create a new proc that will call both our block and the old method
proc = Proc.new do
block.call if block
old_method.bind(self).call
end
# Bind that proc to the original module
define_method(method, proc)
end
end
def self.on_class_method(mod, method, &block)
mod.class_eval do
# Stash the old method
old_method = singleton_method(method)
# Create a new proc that will call both our block and the old method
proc = Proc.new do
block.call if block
old_method.call
end
# Bind that proc to the original module
define_singleton_method(method, proc)
end
end
end
Usage from my tests looks like:
count = 0
Spy.on_instance_method(FakeClass, :value) { count += 1 }
fake = FakeClass.new(6)
fake.value.must_equal 6
count.must_equal 1

Ruby on Rails decorator for caching a result?

In Python, you can write a decorator for memoizing a function's response.
Is there something similar for Ruby on Rails? I have a model's method that makes a query, which I would like to cache.
I know I can do something inside the method, like:
def foo(param)
if self.cache[param].nil?
self.cache[param] = self.get_query_result(param)
else
self.cache[param]
end
end
However, given that I would do this often, I'd prefer a decorator syntax. It is clearer and better IMO.
Is there something like this for Ruby on Rails?
I usually do this using custom accessors, instance variables, and the ||= operator:
def foo
#foo ||= something_or_other
end
something_or_other could be a private method on the same class that returns the object that foo should be.
EDIT
Here's a slightly more complicated solution that lets you cache any method based on the arguments used to call them.
class MyClass
attr_reader :cache
def initialize
#cache = {}
end
class << self
def cacheable(symbol)
alias_method :"_#{symbol}_uncached", symbol
define_method(symbol) do |*args|
cache[[symbol, *args]] ||= (send :"_#{symbol}_uncached", *args)
end
end
end
end
How this works:
class MyClass
def foo(a, b)
a + b
end
cacheable :foo
end
First, the method is defined normally. Then the class method cacheable is called, which aliases the original method to a new name, then redefines it under the original name to be executed only if it's not already cached. It first checks the cache for anything using the same method and arguments, returns the value if present, and executes the original method if not.
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html:
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.
-- Phil Karlton
Rails has a lot of built in caching(including query caching). You might not need to do anything:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/caching_with_rails.html
Here is a recent blog post about problems with roll your own caching:
http://cmme.org/tdumitrescu/blog/2014/01/careful-what-you-memoize/

Ruby: Alter class static method in a code block

Given the Thread class with it current method.
Now inside a test, I want to do this:
def test_alter_current_thread
Thread.current = a_stubbed_method
# do something that involve the work of Thread.current
Thread.current = default_thread_current
end
Basically, I want to alter the method of a class inside a test method and recover it after that.
I know it sound complex for another language, like Java & C# (in Java, only powerful mock framework can do it). But it's ruby and I hope such nasty stuff would be available
You might want to take a look at a Ruby mocking framework like Mocha, but in terms of using plain Ruby it can be done using alias_method (documentation here) e.g.
beforehand:
class Thread
class << self
alias_method :old_current, :current
end
end
then define your new method
class Thread
def self.current
# implementation here
end
end
then afterwards restore the old method:
class Thread
class << self
alias_method :current, :old_current
end
end
Update to illustrate doing this from within a test
If you want to do this from within a test you could define some helper methods as follows:
def replace_class_method(cls, meth, new_impl)
cls.class_eval("class << self; alias_method :old_#{meth}, :#{meth}; end")
cls.class_eval(new_impl)
end
def restore_class_method(cls, meth)
cls.class_eval("class << self; alias_method :#{meth}, :old_#{meth}; end")
end
replace_class_method is expecting a class constant, the name of a class method and the new method definition as a string. restore_class_method takes the class and the method name and then aliases the original method back in place.
Your test would then be along the lines of:
def test
new_impl = <<EOM
def self.current
"replaced!"
end
EOM
replace_class_method(Thread, 'current', s)
puts "Replaced method call: #{Thread.current}"
restore_class_method(Thread, 'current')
puts "Restored method call: #{Thread.current}"
end
You could also write a little wrapper method which would replace a method, yield to a block and then ensure that the original method was reinstated afterwards e.g.
def with_replaced_method(cls, meth, new_impl)
replace_class_method(cls, meth, new_impl)
begin
result = yield
ensure
restore_class_method(cls, meth)
end
return result
end
Inside your test method this could then be used as:
with_replaced_method(Thread, 'current', new_impl) do
# test code using the replaced method goes here
end
# after this point the original method definition is restored
As mentioned in the original answer, you can probably find a framework to do this for you but hopefully the above code is interesting and useful anyway.

Make all subclasses of ActiveRecord::Base methods say their name

For cruft-removal purposes I would like to log whenever a method from one of my AR models is called.
I can get get all those classes with something like this:
subclasses = [] ; ObjectSpace.each_object(Module) {|m| subclasses << m if m.ancestors.include? ActiveRecord::Base } ; subclasses.map(&:name)
But then I need a list of only the methods defined on those classes (instance and class methods), and a way to inject a logger statement in them.
The result would be the equivalent of inserting this into every method
def foo
logger.info "#{class.name} - #{__method__}"
# ...
end
def self.foo
logger.info "#{name} - #{__method__}"
# ...
end
How can I do that without actually adding it to every single method?
Some awesome meta perhaps?
If you want only the methods defined in the class you can do this:
>> Project.instance_methods
=> ["const_get", "validates_associated", "before_destroy_callback_chain", "reset_mocha", "parent_name", "inspect", "slug_normalizer_block", "set_sequence_name", "require_library_or_gem", "method_exists?", "valid_keys_for_has_and_belongs_to_many_association=", "table_name=", "validate_find_options_without_friendly", "quoted_table_name" (another 100 or so methods)]
Only the methods defined in your class
>> Project.instance_methods(false)
=> ["featured_asset", "category_list", "before_save_associated_records_for_slugs", "asset_ids", "primary_asset", "friendly_id_options", "description", "description_plain"]
You should be using Aspect Oriented Programming pattern for this. In Ruby Aquarium gem provides the AOP DSL.
Create a log_method_initializer.rb in config/initializers/ directory.
require 'aquarium'
Aspect.new(:around, :calls_to => :all_methods,
:in_types => [ActiveRecord::Base] ) do |join_point, object, *args|
log "Entering: #{join_point.target_type.name}##{join_point.method_name}"
result = join_point.proceed
log "Leaving: #{join_point.target_type.name}##{join_point.method_name}"
result
end
Every method calls of classes inherited from ActiveRecord::Base will be logged.
You have
AR::Base.instance_methods
and
AR::Base.class_eval "some string"
so you can probably use them to put a header on every existing method.
For instance method call you can use this proxy pattern:
class BlankSlate
instance_methods.each { |m| undef_method m unless m =~ /^__/ }
end
class MyProxy < BlankSlate
def initialize(obj, &proc)
#proc = proc
#obj = obj
end
def method_missing(sym, *args, &block)
#proc.call(#obj,sym, *args)
#obj.__send__(sym, *args, &block)
end
end
Example:
cust = Customer.first
cust = MyProxy.new(cust) do |obj, method_name, *args|
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.info "#{obj.class}##{method_name}"
end
cust.city
# This will log:
# Customer#city
This is inspired from: http://onestepback.org/index.cgi/Tech/Ruby/BlankSlate.rdoc
You will need to find a way to apply this pattern on ActiveRecord::Base object creation.
For Aquarium, seems like adding method_options => :exclude_ancestor_methods does the trick.
I had the stack too deep problem as well.
Source
http://andrzejonsoftware.blogspot.com/2011/08/tracing-aspect-for-rails-application.html

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