Ruby: Calling methods of a specific ancestor

Following the recent post, State pattern using Modules and Facets, Aman King asked:

what happens when two modules are included in a class[?] ... [will included modules overwrite] any methods that were included already by an earlier included module[?] (for the full comment please see the referenced post)

In Aman's comment he also points out that the Programming Ruby provides the following information.

If a module is included within a class definition, the module's constants, class variables, and instance methods are effectively bundled into an anonymous (and inaccessible) superclass for that class. In particular, objects of the class will respond to messages sent to the module's instance methods.

Part of the answer to Aman's question is in the statement from Programming Ruby. The way I think of it, each class can have zero or one superclass; however, each class may also have zero or many ancestors that are proxies to modules. You could simplify the previous statement and think of the modules themselves being an ancestor, but it can be important to note the difference because a change to a module will be reflected by all classes that include that module (even classes that included the module before the new behavior was added to the module).

Let's look at an example of a classes' ancestors.

module James
end

module Lynn
end

class FamilyMember
  include James
  include Lynn
end

FamilyMember.ancestors # => [FamilyMember, Lynn, James, Object, Kernel]
FamilyMember.superclass # => Object

The ancestors collection includes the class itself [FamilyMember], all included modules [Lynn, James, Kernel], and the superclass [Object]. The order of the ancestors collection is also important. The order of the ancestors is the order that the methods will be looked up when the object receives a message. Therefore, any message that is sent to a FamilyMember instance will first look in the methods of FamilyMember, then in Lynn, then James, etc.

If Lynn and James were to define a method, both of those methods would live on the proxies themselves, not on the FamilyMember class. Since the methods live on the proxies, including more modules will not overwrite a previous method definition; however, the last included module to define a method will be the first consulted when that message is sent. The module that was included last (and defines the method) will execute and return, and any other definitions of that method (found on other ancestors) will not be executed.

module James
  def name
    "James"
  end
end

module Lynn
  def name
    "Lynn"
  end
end

class FamilyMember
  include James
  include Lynn
end

FamilyMember.ancestors # => [FamilyMember, Lynn, James, Object, Kernel]
FamilyMember.new.name # => "Lynn"

So, given the above, how does Kernel.as allow me to call the methods of James even though Lynn clearly has precedence? Let's look at the implementation:

# comments removed for the example, check out the source of Ruby Facets to see the comments

module Kernel
  def as(ancestor, &blk)
    @__as ||= {}
    unless r = @__as[ancestor]
      r = (@__as[ancestor] = As.new(self, ancestor))
    end
    r.instance_eval(&blk) if block_given?
    r
  end
end

class As #:nodoc:
  private *instance_methods.select { |m| m !~ /(^__|^\W|^binding$)/ }

  def initialize(subject, ancestor)
    @subject = subject
    @ancestor = ancestor
  end

  def method_missing(sym, *args, &blk)
    @ancestor.instance_method(sym).bind(@subject).call(*args,&blk)
  end
end

For performance reasons (I assume), Kernel.as stores the As instance in a hash; however, for the purposes of our example the only thing worth noting is that Kernel.as returns an instance of the As class initialized with self and the ancestor. Generally, the As instance is returned and a method is immediately called on the As instance. If the As instance doesn't respond to the message it is sent, the method_missing method is invoked.

def method_missing(sym, *args, &blk)
  @ancestor.instance_method(sym).bind(@subject).call(*args,&blk)
end

The above method_missing definition is what allows you to call a method on any ancestor. Let's start with an example and then walk through the method_missing definition to see how it works.

require 'rubygems'
require 'facets'

module James
  def name
    "James"
  end
end

module Lynn
  def name
    "Lynn"
  end
end

class FamilyMember
  include James
  include Lynn
end

FamilyMember.ancestors # => [FamilyMember, Lynn, James, Object, Kernel]
member = FamilyMember.new
member.name # => "Lynn"
member.as(James).name # => "James"

In the above example the member instance receives the message as which returns an instance of As initialized with the member instance and the module James (as the ancestor). Following the return of the As instance, it receives the name message. Since the As instance doesn't define name, method_missing is called passing in :name as the first argument (sym). Within method_missing, the ancestor (James) receives the message instance_method with the sym (:name) as the argument. The instance_method method will return the unbound method name from the ancestor (James). Next, method_missing binds the unbound method (name) to the subject (the member instance) and sends the call message (with arguments, which are empty in our example). When the unbound method executes bound to the subject it can access any state or behavior of the subject. In our example, the method merely returns "James"; however, the example from State pattern using Modules and Facets verifies that a method from the subject may be called from the unbound method when it is bound to the subject.