spiridonov.pro

About me | Blog | По-русски

Ruby gotchas

28 August 2012

Automatic class loading gotcha

There are several Rails models. Of course each class is located in separate file.


class Human
  #...
end

class Human::Head
  #...
end

class AlabamaMan < Human
  #...
end

class AlabamaMan::Head < Human::Head
  #...
end

class MonicaBellucci < Human
  #...
end

class MonicaBellucci::Head < Human::Head
  #...
end

It looks OK. Yes? But there is one hidden problem, I wouldn`t write an article into my blog if there was no one:) Lets go to Rails console:


irb(main):001:0> Human
=> Human
irb(main):002:0> Human::Head
=> Human::Head
irb(main):003:0> AlabamaMan::Head
=> Human::Head

Wtf!? Reopen console and try again:


irb(main):001:0> AlabamaMan::Head
=> AlabamaMan::Head
irb(main):002:0> MonicaBellucci::Head
=> Human::Head
irb(main):003:0> Human::Head
=> Human::Head

The problem occurs only in development Rails environment because of automatic class loading. When we ask for Human::Head Ruby tries to find constant Head in Human module. It doesn`t find and then tries to load class Human::Head. Then we ask for AlabamaMan::Head. Ruby doesn`t find constant AlabamaMan, loads correspondent class and then tries to find Head there. Of course there is no Head yet and Ruby tries to find it in parent class. Ooooopss!

The same shit happens in the second time. AlabamaMan::Head loads:

And MonicaBellucci::Head returns parents Human::Head for the same reason…

This doesn`t happen in production environment and with files required manually via require 'somefile'.

Constant name resolution gotcha


A = 1

module Foo
  A = 2

  class Bar
    def self.method1
      A
    end
  end
end

class Foo::Bar
  def self.method2
    A
  end
end

module Foo
  class Bar
    def self.method3
      A
    end
  end
end

Lets check it in Rails console:


irb(main):001:0> Foo::Bar.method1
=> 2
irb(main):002:0> Foo::Bar.method2
=> 1
irb(main):003:0> Foo::Bar.method3
=> 2

There is a difference between Foo::Bar and module Foo ... class Bar, remember that! When we declare Bar inside Foo module, Bar gets lexical scope of Foo.

© 2011-2022 - Stanislav Spiridonov