How to Intercept Method Call in Ruby

How can I intercept method call in ruby?

This is one way to do it:

class Superclass
  def before_each_method name
    p [:before_method, name]
  end

  def self.method_added name
    return if @__last_methods_added && @__last_methods_added.include?(name)
    with = :"#{name}_with_before_each_method"
    without = :"#{name}_without_before_each_method"
    @__last_methods_added = [name, with, without]
    define_method with do |*args, &block|
      before_each_method name
      send without, *args, &block
    end
    alias_method without, name
    alias_method name, with
    @__last_methods_added = nil
  end
end

class SubclassA < Superclass
  def my_new_method
    p :my_new_method
  end

  def my_new_other_method
    p :my_new_other_method
  end
end

SubclassA.new.my_new_method
SubclassA.new.my_new_other_method

This will create a wrapper method using the alias_method_chaining method as soon as the method you'd like to wrap is defined in the subclass.

How to intercept class method calls, not just instance method calls

Here is my solution modified from the answer in the link you provided. I moved the hook logic from super class to a separate module so that when ever a class needs the hook, it just include or extend that module and call the hook method.

• before_each_method type, &block - type can be :class or :instance, and the block is the code to be executed before each method. The block will be evaluated under certain environments, that is, for instance methods, self in the block is the instance; for class methods, self in the block is the class.
• before_class_method &block - alias for before_each_method :class, &block
• before_instance_method &block - alias for before_each_method :instance, &block

module MethodHooker
  def self.included(base)
    base.extend(ClassMethods)
  end
  def self.extended(base)
    base.extend(ClassMethods)
  end
  module ClassMethods
    def before_each_method type, &block
      singleton = class << self; self; end
      case type
      when :instance
        this = self
        singleton.instance_eval do
          define_method :method_added do |name|
            last = instance_variable_get(:@__last_methods_added)
            return if last and last.include?(name)
            with = :"#{name}_with_before_each_method"
            without = :"#{name}_without_before_each_method"
            instance_variable_set(:@__last_methods_added, [name, with, without])
            this.class_eval do
              define_method with do |*args, &blk|
                instance_exec(name, args, blk, &block)
                send without, *args, &blk
              end
              alias_method without, name
              alias_method name, with
            end
            instance_variable_set(:@__last_methods_added, nil)
          end
        end
      when :class
        this = self
        singleton.instance_eval do
          define_method :singleton_method_added do |name|
            return if name == :singleton_method_added
            last = instance_variable_get(:@__last_singleton_methods_added)
            return if last and last.include?(name)
            with = :"#{name}_with_before_each_method"
            without = :"#{name}_without_before_each_method"
            instance_variable_set(:@__last_singleton_methods_added, [name, with, without])
            singleton.class_eval do
              define_method with do |*args, &blk|
                instance_exec(name, args, blk, &block)
                send without, *args, &blk
              end
              alias_method without, name
              alias_method name, with
            end
            instance_variable_set(:@__last_singleton_methods_added, nil)
          end
        end
      end
    end
    def before_class_method &block
      before_each_method :class, &block
    end
    def before_instance_method &block
      before_each_method :instance, &block
    end
  end
end

class Test
  extend MethodHooker
  before_each_method :instance do |method, args, block|
    p [method, args, block]
    puts "before instance method(#{method}) #{@var}"
  end
  before_class_method do |method, args, block|
    puts "before class method(#{method}) #{@class_instance_var}"
  end
  @class_instance_var = 'stackoverflow'
  def initialize
    @var = 1
  end
  def test(a, b, c)
    puts "instance method test"
  end
  def self.test1
    puts "class method test"
  end
end

Test.new.test(1, "arg2", [3]) {|t| t}
Test.test1

The output will be something like:

[:initialize, [], nil]
before instance method(initialize)
[:test, [1, "arg2", [3]], #<Proc:0x00000001017d5eb8@/Users/test/before_method.rb:88>]
before instance method(test) 1
instance method test
before class method(test1) stackoverflow
class method test

Ruby method interception

Less code was changed from original. I modified only 2 line.

class MethodInterception

  def self.before_filter(method)
    puts "before filter called"
    method = method.to_s
    eval_string = "
      alias_method :old_#{method}, :#{method}

      def #{method}(*args)
        puts 'going to call former method'
        old_#{method}(*args)
        puts 'former method called'
      end
    "
    puts "going to call #{eval_string}"
    class_eval(eval_string) # <= modified
    puts "return"
  end
end

class HomeWork < MethodInterception

  def say_hello
    puts "say hello"
  end

  before_filter(:say_hello) # <= change the called order
end

This works well.

HomeWork.new.say_hello
#=> going to call former method
#=> say hello
#=> former method called

call before methods in model on ruby

You can do this with prepend. prepend is like include in that it adds a module to the ancestors of the class, however instead of adding it after the class it adds it before.

This means that if a method exists both in the prepended module and the class then the module implementation is called first (and it can optionally call super if it wants to call the base class).

This allows you to write a hooks module like so:

module Hooks
  def before(*method_names)
    to_prepend = Module.new do
      method_names.each do |name| 
        define_method(name) do |*args, &block|
          puts "before #{name}"
          super(*args,&block)
        end
      end
    end
    prepend to_prepend
  end
end


class Example
  extend Hooks
  before :foo, :bar

  def foo
    puts "in foo"
  end
  def bar
    puts "in bar"
  end
end

In real use you would probably want to stash that module somewhere so that each call to before doesn't create a new module but that is just an inplementation detail

Executing code for every method call in a Ruby module

Like this:

module M
  def self.before(*names)
    names.each do |name|
      m = instance_method(name)
      define_method(name) do |*args, &block|  
        yield
        m.bind(self).(*args, &block)
      end
    end
  end
end

module M
  def hello
    puts "yo"
  end

  def bye
    puts "bum"
  end

  before(*instance_methods) { puts "start" }
end

class C
  include M
end

C.new.bye #=> "start" "bum"
C.new.hello #=> "start" "yo"

Ruby: how to intercept method, fiddle with the args and then call the method

alias_method_chain exists for this exact situation.

It's not always the right choice, but works well when you have a fitting use case, which this one looks to be.

Ruby: Catching All Methods Sent to an Object

As noted in the comments and the answer from @DanCheail, if you're using ruby 1.9+ you should use a BasicObject rather than undefining methods of Object. At the time of this posting usage of 1.8.x was still quite prevalent, even though 1.9 had been released for some time.

---

Rather than attempting to "redefine" anything, you could wrap your object in a blanked (for the most part) proxy object, something like:

class MyProxy
  instance_methods.each do |meth|
    # skipping undef of methods that "may cause serious problems"
    undef_method(meth) if meth !~ /^(__|object_id)/
  end

  def initialize(object)
    @object = object
  end     

  def method_missing(*args)
    # do stuff
    p args
    # ...
    @object.send(*args)
  end
end

MyProxy.new(MyClass.new).whatever

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