Undefine Method Only Marks the Method Undefined

Ruby
1

Hello,

According to the book Programming Ruby by Dave T., “an
undefined method still exists - it is simply marked as being undefined.”
Why is it not completely removed?

I find this somewhat related to the fact that an object still cannot be
dumped after “undefing” its singleton methods.

obj = Object.new

def obj.foo
end

p obj.respond_to? :foo # => true

class << obj
undef foo
end

p obj.respond_to? :foo # => true

Marshal.dump(obj) # => error

2

Hi Su,

The difference between undef_method and remove_method is, as you
point out, that undef_method marks the method as undefined.

This difference is most simply demonstrated with inheritance: if method
dispatch reaches an
undefined method, it stops looking for the method and gives an error.
However,
remove_method eliminates the method entirely, and the next ancestor will
then
be considered.

In code:
class A
def foo; ‘foo’; end
def bar; ‘bar’; end
end
class B < A
def foo; ‘B foo’; end
def bar; ‘B bar’; end

remove_method :foo
undef_method :bar
end
class C < B
end

C.new.foo #=> ‘foo’
C.new.bar #=> NoMethodError: undefined method `bar’ for
#<C:0x0000010161f7e0>

Regarding Marshal.dump, If you use remove_method instead of
undef_method, you will
in fact be able to dump the object again:

obj = Object.new
def obj.foo
end

Marshal.dump(obj) #=> TypeError: singleton can’t be dumped

class << obj
remove_method :foo
end

Marshal.dump(obj) #=> “\x04\bo:\vObject\x00”

The (simplified) technical reason why undef_method doesn’t work and
remove_method does,
regarding Marshal.dump, is that undef_method leaves the undefined flag
as additional state
in the singleton class, whereas remove_method will leave obj with an
empty singleton class,
identical to Object.

Hope this helps,

Michael E.
[email protected]
http://carboni.ca/

3

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Su Zhang [email protected] wrote:

Marshal.dump(obj) # => error

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

I assume because the intuition is that undefining a method on an object
means the object should raise the undefined error when you try to call
it.
But simply removing it would not prevent Ruby from finding an inherited
version of the method.

ie

o = Object.new

o.to_s # => “#Object:0x0000010086a460”

def o.to_s
“o#to_s”
end

o.to_s # => “o#to_s”

class << o
remove_method :to_s
end

o.to_s # => “#Object:0x0000010086a460”

It still has a to_s method, because it inherits one from Object. What if
you
want it to not respond to that one? You can’t undefine the method on
object,
or every object loses it’s inherited to_s method. So you need to
interrupt
dispatch when this method is called. Hence undef simply raises the same
error you would have gotten if it hadn’t found the method:

o = Object.new

o.to_s # => “#Object:0x0000010086a488”

def o.to_s
“o#to_s”
end

o.to_s # => “o#to_s”

class << o
undef :to_s
end

o.to_s # =>

~> -:15:in <main>': undefined method to_s’ for

#Object:0x0000010086a488 (NoMethodError)

4

Thank you - Michael and Josh, now this makes perfect sense to me. It’s
funny how I wasn’t aware of the existence of `remove_method’ at all!