Accessing the currently running method

ruby-talk
1

is caller the best way to access the name of the current method?

ie if I have a method called x, is there any other way to determine at runtime the exact method that is executing? caller would return an array (limited by the int param) of the call stack, but I'd still have to search across the array (with a regexp) to extract the method name

with caller I can do something like...

ms = ["prog:1:in `x'"]

ms.each { |m| /x/=~m do_stuff }

Is there no other way? no Kernel.running_method, no Kernel.executing?
Are there any libraries that would give me this level of inspection without extending Kernel? (I'm thinking of evil.rb here)

No biggy, just interested if anyone else has ever wanted/needed to get this info in a running program, and what they did to do it

Kev

2

Kev Jackson wrote:

is caller the best way to access the name of the current method?

ie if I have a method called x, is there any other way to determine at runtime the exact method that is executing? caller would return an array (limited by the int param) of the call stack, but I'd still have to search across the array (with a regexp) to extract the method name

with caller I can do something like...

ms = ["prog:1:in `x'"]

ms.each { |m| /x/=~m do_stuff }

Is there no other way? no Kernel.running_method, no Kernel.executing?
Are there any libraries that would give me this level of inspection without extending Kernel? (I'm thinking of evil.rb here)

There is binding_of_caller which might or might not help you - depending on what you want to do.

Another option is to use set_trace_func to set up something that keeps track of method invocations.

No biggy, just interested if anyone else has ever wanted/needed to get this info in a running program, and what they did to do it

Certainly, from time to time. What do *you* need it for?

Kind regards

  robert

3

There is binding_of_caller which might or might not help you - depending on what you want to do.

I'll look into it thanks

Another option is to use set_trace_func to set up something that keeps track of method invocations.

No biggy, just interested if anyone else has ever wanted/needed to get this info in a running program, and what they did to do it

Certainly, from time to time. What do *you* need it for?

I currently have a yaml file

pg_401:
  corp_nm_kn: 'JP text...' <= corprate name (kana)
  etc

and a ruby script that uses watir to execute a set of web app page transitions whilst filling in the data read from the yaml file.

in standard watir
ie.text_field(:id, 'some id value for text field').set(v)

as I'm reading the data from a yaml file I get a hash of hashes (ok I could get an object or anything else, but at the moment I get back a hash of hashes)

so my calls to watir look like

ie.text_field(:id, test_data['pg_401']['corp_name_field']).set(test_data['pg_401']['corp_name']

I've managed to reduce this to

text :id, :pg_401, :corp_name which is expanded to the correct call using method_missing, I'd like to reduce this further to

text :corp_name

I can remove the :pg_401 by knowing the currently executing method, I can remove the :id by simply trying all options :id, :name, :matches (I think) and rescuing the Exception raised.

Ultimately, I'd rather have all these field_type, :field_name pairs defined in yaml and then create a script on the fly and execute it. At the moment, the qc team will have to edit two files (data in yaml format, and script in ruby).

Why would I want to reduce the amount of text typed by the qc team (who will be writing these scripts)?:

1 - because it's possible to reduce the workload
2 - because some of the screens (pg_XXX) have more than 400 fields that must be entered (not my fault, I had no hand in designing the UI, for that you can blaim HP japan)
3 - because I'm starting to get why people think that DSLs and lisp macros are a good thing (I think I reached the tipping point of understanding, when I saw loads of my first calls to the watir library and thought, "That's irritatingly repetitive, surely the computer can do that kind of work for me").

Currently I have

caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
which adequately returns the current method (given the current convention of naming the methods something with the page number in them)

I tried
class Object
  def current_method
    caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
  end
end

but calls to this inside a method_missing method produce nil - not sure why, but obviously I need to study more ruby to understand why that doesn't work. Including current_method (as defined above) in module Kernel also doesn't do the trick, but having the caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1] inside the method_missing method works.

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of a couple of new things
Kev

4

Kev Jackson wrote:

Currently I have

caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
which adequately returns the current method (given the current convention of naming the methods something with the page number in them)

I tried
class Object
def current_method
   caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
end
end

but calls to this inside a method_missing method produce nil - not sure why, but obviously I need to study more ruby to understand why that doesn't work. Including current_method (as defined above) in module Kernel also doesn't do the trick, but having the caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1] inside the method_missing method works.

Maybe you're calling method_missing again? Could be that you a) either need to provide a parameter to current_method that determines how many levels to go up or b) you cannot do what you want because once method_missing is invoked your original method name is lost:

>> o=Object.new
=> #<Object:0x3f3530>
>> def o.method_missing(s,*a,&b) p caller; p s; end
=> nil
>> def o.bar() foo() end
=> nil
>> o.bar
["(irb):7:in `bar'", "(irb):8:in `irb_binding'", "/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/workspace.rb:52:in `irb_binding'", ":0"]
:foo
=> nil

"foo" doesn't show up in caller, but method_missing has the symbol (first arg).

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of a couple of new things

You're welcome!

Kind regards

  robert

5

you could use metaprogramming to provide this functionality:

     harp:~ > cat a.rb
     class Thread
       attr_accessor 'where'
     end
     class Module
       require 'thread'
       def referable *methods
         methods.flatten.each do |m|
           module_eval <<-code
             alias_method "__#{ m }__", "#{ m }"
             def #{ m }(*a, &b)
               t = Thread.current
               where = t.where
               begin
                 t.where = "#{ m }"
                 __#{ m }__(*a, &b)
               ensure
                 t.where = where
               end
             end
           code
         end
       end
     end
     class Object
       def where
         Thread.current.where
       end
     end

ยทยทยท

On Thu, 30 Mar 2006, Kev Jackson wrote:

Currently I have

caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
which adequately returns the current method (given the current convention of naming the methods something with the page number in them)

I tried
class Object
def current_method
  caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
end

but calls to this inside a method_missing method produce nil - not sure why, but obviously I need to study more ruby to understand why that doesn't work. Including current_method (as defined above) in module Kernel also doesn't do the trick, but having the caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1] inside the method_missing method works.

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of a couple of new things

     #
     # eg
     #
     class << self
       def foo
         p where
         bar
       end
       def bar
         p where
       end
       referable 'foo', 'bar'
     end

     self.foo

     class C
       def method_missing(m, *a, &b)
         p where
         foo
       end
       def foo
         p where
       end
       referable 'method_missing', 'foo'
     end

     C.new.bar

     harp:~ > ruby a.rb
     "foo"
     "bar"
     "method_missing"
     "foo"

regards.

-a
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