# Given an object, how to find public methods in included modu

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/given-an-object-how-to-find-public-methods-in-included-modu/89611>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 21, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/given-an-object-how-to-find-public-methods-in-included-modu/89611 "2007-03-21T17:04:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/given-an-object-how-to-find-public-methods-in-included-modu/89611/1 "2007-03-21T17:04:50Z")

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Hey 🙂

I’m trying to extend a method for creating a site map for a Ruby on  
Rails app. This question, I believe, is pretty much just Ruby though,  
that’s why I’m asking here.

Basically, what it does ATM is find all classes that end in  
‘\_controller.rb’ and require them,

require ‘find’

# Require all controllers

Find.find(File.join(RAILS\_ROOT, “app/controllers”)) { |path|  
require\_dependency path if path =~ /\_controller.rb$/ }

Okay. So I have two issues, and therefore two questions for this:

a) The “app/controllers” path does not just contain files, it also  
contains directories, each of which present a module, like “Manage::”  
for the backend, and “Store::” for the frontend. Inside are class  
files that share names, e.g. ‘Store::Items’ and ‘Manage::Items’. Only  
difference is the module they belong to.

b) In the backend classes, I include a module, ‘include Backend::Crud’  
which defines some shared methods on the backend classes.

My question for a) is, how can I distinguish between the different  
classes, given that they belong to different modules. How can I ask an  
object what module it belongs to?

And, b), how can I look up these included methods? Right now, I can  
only find public methods that are in the class files themselves, not  
those defined in included modules…

I’m a bit confused with all this, it’s pretty low-level for me 😉 So I  
apologize if I’m asking very stupidly. If you have any ideas of how I  
could do this, please let me know.

Thanks in advance,  
Daniel

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 5:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/given-an-object-how-to-find-public-methods-in-included-modu/89611/2 "2007-03-21T17:34:54Z")

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On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> difference is the module they belong to.  
> those defined in included modules…
> 
> I’m a bit confused with all this, it’s pretty low-level for me 😉 So I  
> apologize if I’m asking very stupidly. If you have any ideas of how I  
> could do this, please let me know.
> 
> Thanks in advance,  
> Daniel

can you start out by telling us **what** you are trying to accomplish?

-a

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/given-an-object-how-to-find-public-methods-in-included-modu/89611/3 "2007-03-21T18:26:02Z")

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On Mar 21, 5:33 pm, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> can you start out by telling us **what** you are trying to accomplish?

Yes 🙂 I’m trying to basically “load in” a bunch of class files and  
detect their public methods, including those defined in included  
modules. Consider this file structure:

apps/  
controllers/  
store/  
items\_controller.rb -\> class Store::ItemsController \<\<  
ApplicationController  
def index  
# blah blah  
end  
end  
manage/  
items\_controller.rb -\> class Manage::ItemsController \<\<  
ApplicationController  
include Poly::BackendCrud  
def show  
# blah blah  
end  
end  
lib/  
poly.rb -\> module Poly  
module BackendCrud  
def save  
# blah blah  
end  
end  
end

Okay. Given that file tree, I want to “examine” all controllers in app/  
controllers/, so that I can produce something like this:  
{ ‘store’ =\> {  
‘items’ =\> [  
‘index’  
]  
},  
‘manage’ =\> {  
‘items’ =\> [  
‘show’,  
‘save’  
]  
}  
}

Do you know what I mean?

Cheers,  
Daniel 🙂