What's the Ruby Way to hide class helpers?

Ruby
1

Start with:

class C
def self.class_callme
internal_helper
end

def instance_callme
C.internal_helper
end

def self.internal_helper
puts “I’m not needed by the outside world.”
end
end

My first instinct was to make internal_helper protected:

class << self
protected
def internal_helper
puts “I’m not needed by the outside world.”
end
end

However, instance_methods (such as instance_callme) can’t call protected
class methods.

Is there some other idiomatic Ruby way to, er, protect internal_helper,
or
another way to call it from instance_callme? Or do I just have to do it
through lack of documentation with :nodoc:, as Rails seems to do?

Jay L.

2

Jay L. wrote:

  puts "I'm not needed by the outside world."

Jay L.
Why not just stick internal_helper in a nested module? (Or does
internal_helper need to access class state?)

class C
def self.class_callme
M.internal_helper
end

def instance_callme
M.internal_helper
end

module M
def self.internal_helper
puts “I’m not needed by the outside world.”
end
end
end

C.new.instance_callme # ==> I’m not needed by the outside world.

3

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:53:44 +0900, Joel VanderWerf wrote:

Why not just stick internal_helper in a nested module? (Or does
internal_helper need to access class state?)

That works for me in the current case; internal_helper routines don’t
need
any class state (and, in general, I try to avoid having any such state,
rebelling against my C days of static variables).

Out of curiosity, though, if I did need my internal_helper routine to
get
at state, what would you recommend? Seems like the only solution in
Ruby
is to extract the internals out to another object that’s only called by
my
public, interface object - but that seems so un-Rubyish.

Jay