Question

I’m writing some code in which I’d like to add some methods to a predefined class, like so:

class Model  # this class already exists

  def my_method
    # code here
  end

end

Is there any way to namespace this, using Modules or otherwise?

Answer 1

There will be a mechanism to do this in Ruby 2.0, although it is not exactly clear what exactly that mechanism is going to be. For the past almost 10 years, the frontrunner seemed to be Selector Namespaces, but recently Classboxes and even more recently, Refinements have taken the lead. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Refinements are actually currently implemented in the YARV trunk.

With all currently existing versions (including the soon to be released 1.9.3), however, there is no way to do this.

That’s one of the reasons why monkey patching should generally be avoided.