accessing the currently running method

[Kev Jackson]

is caller the best way to access the name of the current method?

ie if I have a method called x, is there any other way to determine at
runtime the exact method that is executing? caller would return an
array (limited by the int param) of the call stack, but I'd still have
to search across the array (with a regexp) to extract the method name

with caller I can do something like...

ms = ["prog:1:in `x'"]

ms.each { |m| /x/=~m do_stuff }

Is there no other way? no Kernel.running_method, no Kernel.executing?
Are there any libraries that would give me this level of inspection
without extending Kernel? (I'm thinking of evil.rb here)

No biggy, just interested if anyone else has ever wanted/needed to get
this info in a running program, and what they did to do it

Kev

 

[Robert Klemme]

is caller the best way to access the name of the current method?

ie if I have a method called x, is there any other way to determine at
runtime the exact method that is executing? caller would return an
array (limited by the int param) of the call stack, but I'd still have
to search across the array (with a regexp) to extract the method name

with caller I can do something like...

ms = ["prog:1:in `x'"]

ms.each { |m| /x/=~m do_stuff }

Is there no other way? no Kernel.running_method, no Kernel.executing?
Are there any libraries that would give me this level of inspection
without extending Kernel? (I'm thinking of evil.rb here)

There is binding_of_caller which might or might not help you - depending
on what you want to do.

Another option is to use set_trace_func to set up something that keeps
track of method invocations.

No biggy, just interested if anyone else has ever wanted/needed to get
this info in a running program, and what they did to do it

Certainly, from time to time. What do *you* need it for?

Kind regards

robert

 

[Kev Jackson]

There is binding_of_caller which might or might not help you -
depending on what you want to do.

I'll look into it thanks

Another option is to use set_trace_func to set up something that keeps
track of method invocations.



Certainly, from time to time. What do *you* need it for?

I currently have a yaml file

pg_401:
corp_nm_kn: 'JP text...' <= corprate name (kana)
etc

and a ruby script that uses watir to execute a set of web app page
transitions whilst filling in the data read from the yaml file.

in standard watir
ie.text_fieldid, 'some id value for text field').set(v)

as I'm reading the data from a yaml file I get a hash of hashes (ok I
could get an object or anything else, but at the moment I get back a
hash of hashes)

so my calls to watir look like

ie.text_fieldid,
test_data['pg_401']['corp_name_field']).set(test_data['pg_401']['corp_name']

I've managed to reduce this to

text :id, g_401, :corp_name which is expanded to the correct call
using method_missing, I'd like to reduce this further to

text :corp_name

I can remove the g_401 by knowing the currently executing method, I
can remove the :id by simply trying all options :id, :name, :matches (I
think) and rescuing the Exception raised.

Ultimately, I'd rather have all these field_type, :field_name pairs
defined in yaml and then create a script on the fly and execute it. At
the moment, the qc team will have to edit two files (data in yaml
format, and script in ruby).

Why would I want to reduce the amount of text typed by the qc team (who
will be writing these scripts)?:

1 - because it's possible to reduce the workload
2 - because some of the screens (pg_XXX) have more than 400 fields that
must be entered (not my fault, I had no hand in designing the UI, for
that you can blaim HP japan)
3 - because I'm starting to get why people think that DSLs and lisp
macros are a good thing (I think I reached the tipping point of
understanding, when I saw loads of my first calls to the watir library
and thought, "That's irritatingly repetitive, surely the computer can do
that kind of work for me").

Currently I have

caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
which adequately returns the current method (given the current
convention of naming the methods something with the page number in them)

I tried
class Object
def current_method
caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
end
end

but calls to this inside a method_missing method produce nil - not sure
why, but obviously I need to study more ruby to understand why that
doesn't work. Including current_method (as defined above) in module
Kernel also doesn't do the trick, but having the caller[0][/in:
`.+(pg_\d{3})/,1] inside the method_missing method works.

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of a couple of new things
Kev

 

[Robert Klemme]

Currently I have

caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
which adequately returns the current method (given the current
convention of naming the methods something with the page number in them)

I tried
class Object
def current_method
caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
end
end

but calls to this inside a method_missing method produce nil - not sure
why, but obviously I need to study more ruby to understand why that
doesn't work. Including current_method (as defined above) in module
Kernel also doesn't do the trick, but having the caller[0][/in:
`.+(pg_\d{3})/,1] inside the method_missing method works.

Maybe you're calling method_missing again? Could be that you a) either
need to provide a parameter to current_method that determines how many
levels to go up or b) you cannot do what you want because once
method_missing is invoked your original method name is lost:
["(irb):7:in `bar'", "(irb):8:in `irb_binding'",
"/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/workspace.rb:52:in `irb_binding'", ":0"]
:foo
=> nil

"foo" doesn't show up in caller, but method_missing has the symbol
(first arg).

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of a couple of new things

You're welcome!

Kind regards

robert

 

[ara.t.howard]

Currently I have

caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
which adequately returns the current method (given the current convention of
naming the methods something with the page number in them)

I tried
class Object
def current_method
caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1]
end
end

but calls to this inside a method_missing method produce nil - not sure why,
but obviously I need to study more ruby to understand why that doesn't work.
Including current_method (as defined above) in module Kernel also doesn't do
the trick, but having the caller[0][/in: `.+(pg_\d{3})/,1] inside the
method_missing method works.

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of a couple of new things

you could use metaprogramming to provide this functionality:

harp:~ > cat a.rb
class Thread
attr_accessor 'where'
end
class Module
require 'thread'
def referable *methods
methods.flatten.each do |m|
module_eval <<-code
alias_method "__#{ m }__", "#{ m }"
def #{ m }(*a, &b)
t = Thread.current
where = t.where
begin
t.where = "#{ m }"
__#{ m }__(*a, &b)
ensure
t.where = where
end
end
code
end
end
end
class Object
def where
Thread.current.where
end
end

#
# eg
#
class << self
def foo
p where
bar
end
def bar
p where
end
referable 'foo', 'bar'
end

self.foo

class C
def method_missing(m, *a, &b)
p where
foo
end
def foo
p where
end
referable 'method_missing', 'foo'
end

C.new.bar



harp:~ > ruby a.rb
"foo"
"bar"
"method_missing"
"foo"


regards.


-a