Feature #9781
Updated by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) over 10 years ago
When `super` is called in a method the Ruby VM knows how to find the next ancestor that has that method and call it. It is difficult to do this manually, so I propose we expose this information in Method#super_location.
Ruby Method class (http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-2.1.1/Method.html) is returned by calling Object.method and passing in a method name (http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-2.1.1/Object.html#method-i-method). This is useful for debugging:
```ruby
# /tmp/code.rb
class Foo
def bar
end
end
puts Foo.new.method(:bar).source_location
# => ["/tmp/code.rb", 3]
```
The Object#method allows a ruby developer to easily track the source location of the method and makes debugging very easy. However if the code is being invoked by a call to `super` it is difficult to track down:
```ruby
# /tmp/code.rb
class BigFoo
def bar
end
end
class Foo < BigFoo
def bar
super
end
end
```
In this code sample it is easy to find the method definition inside of Foo but it is very difficult in large projects to find what code exactly `super` is calling. This simple example is easy, but it can be hard when there are many ancestors. Currently if I wanted to find this we can inspect ancestors
```ruby ```
Foo.ancestors[1..-1].map do |ancestor|
next unless ancestor.method_defined?(:bar)
ancestor.instance_method(:bar)
end.compact.first.source_location
```
To make this process simpler I am proposing a method on the Method class that would return the result of `super`
It could be called like this:
```ruby ```
Foo.new.method(:bar).super_method
```
I believe adding Method#super_method, or exposing this same information somewhere else, could greatly help developers to debug large systems easily.