Class methods and protected instance methods

I would have thought that a class method context would be able to call
protected methods on an instance of that class. That does not seem to be
the case:

class Foo
def self.create_with_magic
newfoo = new()
newfoo.init_magic
return newfoo
end

def initialize
# no magic here
end

protected

def init_magic
# something magical
end
end

foo = Foo.create_with_magic #this will raise an exception

Is this just an oversight? A bug? Is there a rationale for it that I’m
not
seeing? I’m not looking for a workaround; I’ve already found a better
way
of doing what brought this to my attention. I am just looking for an
explanation.

–Greg

On 5/1/06, Gregory S. [email protected] wrote:

This is what is expected. Ruby is not C++/Java and its object model is
quite different. In particular as Class objects are first class
objects, they do not bestow any special access rights to other
objects, including instances of themselves.

pth