Modules

Modules are a way of grouping together methods, classes, and constants. Modules give you two major benefits:

Namespaces

As you start to write bigger and bigger Ruby programs, you'll naturally find yourself producing chunks of reusable code—libraries of related routines that are generally applicable. You'll want to break this code out into separate files so the contents can be shared among different Ruby programs.

Often this code will be organized into classes, so you'll probably stick a class (or a set of interrelated classes) into a file.

However, there are times when you want to group things together that don't naturally form a class.

An initial approach might be to put all these things into a file and simply load that file into any program that needs it. This is the way the C language works. However, there's a problem. Say you write a set of trigonometry functions sin, cos, and so on. You stuff them all into a file, trig.rb, for future generations to enjoy. Meanwhile, Sally is working on a simulation of good and evil, and codes up a set of her own useful routines, including beGood and sin, and sticks them into action.rb. Joe, who wants to write a program to find out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, needs to load both trig.rb and action.rb into his program. But both define a method called sin. Bad news.

The answer is the module mechanism. Modules define a namespace, a sandbox in which your methods and constants can play without having to worry about being stepped on by other methods and constants. The trig functions can go into one module:

module Trig
  PI = 3.141592654
  def Trig.sin(x)
   # ..
  end
  def Trig.cos(x)
   # ..
  end
end

module Action
  VERY_BAD = 0
  BAD      = 1
  def Action.sin(badness)
    # ...
  end
end

Module constants are named just like class constants, with an initial uppercase letter. The method definitions look similar, too: these module methods are defined just like class methods.

If a third program wants to use these modules, it can simply load up the two files (using the Ruby require statement, which we discuss in “Including Other Files”) and reference the qualified names.

require "trig"
require "action"

y = Trig.sin(Trig::PI/4)
wrongdoing = Action.sin(Action::VERY_BAD)

As with class methods, you call a module method by preceding its name with the module's name and a period, and you reference a constant using the module name and two colons.

Mixins

Modules have another, wonderful use. At a stroke, they pretty much eliminate the need for multiple inheritance, providing a facility called a mixin.

In the previous section's examples, we defined module methods, methods whose names were prefixed by the module name. If this made you think of class methods, your next thought might well be “what happens if I define instance methods within a module?” Good question. A module can't have instances, because a module isn't a class. However, you can include a module within a class definition. When this happens, all the module's instance methods are suddenly available as methods in the class as well. They get mixed in. In fact, mixed-in modules effectively behave as superclasses.

module Debug
  def whoAmI?
    "#{self.type.name} (\##{self.id}): #{self.to_s}"
  end
end
class Phonograph
  include Debug
  # ...
end
class EightTrack
  include Debug
  # ...
end
ph = Phonograph.new("West End Blues")
et = EightTrack.new("Surrealistic Pillow")

ph.whoAmI? → "Phonograph (#537766170): West End Blues"
et.whoAmI? → "EightTrack (#537765860): Surrealistic Pillow"

By including the Debug module, both Phonograph and EightTrack gain access to the whoAmI? instance method.

A couple of points about the include statement before we go on. First, it has nothing to do with files. C programmers use a preprocessor directive called #include to insert the contents of one file into another during compilation. The Ruby include statement simply makes a reference to a named module. If that module is in a separate file, you must use require to drag that file in before using include. Second, a Ruby include does not simply copy the module's instance methods into the class. Instead, it makes a reference from the class to the included module. If multiple classes include that module, they'll all point to the same thing. If you change the definition of a method within a module, even while your program is running, all classes that include that module will exhibit the new behavior. (Of course, we're speaking only of methods here. Instance variables are always per-object, for example.)

Mixins give you a wonderfully controlled way of adding functionality to classes. However, their true power comes out when the code in the mixin starts to interact with code in the class that uses it. Let's take the standard Ruby mixin Comparable as an example. The Comparable mixin can be used to add the comparison operators (<, <=, ==, >=, and >), as well as the method between?, to a class. For this to work, Comparable assumes that any class that uses it defines the operator <=>. So, as a class writer, you define the one method, <=>, include Comparable, and get six comparison functions for free. Let's try this with our Song class, by making the songs comparable based on their duration. All we have to do is include the Comparable module and implement the comparison operator <=>.

class Song
  include Comparable
  def <=>(other)
    self.duration <=> other.duration
  end
end

song1 = Song.new("My Way",  "Sinatra", 225)
song2 = Song.new("Bicylops", "Fleck",  260)

song1 <=> song2 → -1
song1  <  song2 → true
song1 ==  song1 → true
song1  >  song2 → false

Finally, back in “Ruby Compared with C++ and Java” we showed an implementation of Smalltalk's inject function, implementing it within class Array. We promised then that we'd make it more generally applicable. What better way than making it a mixin module?

module Inject
  def inject(n)
     each do |value|
       n = yield(n, value)
     end
     n
  end
  def sum(initial = 0)
    inject(initial) { |n, value| n + value }
  end
  def product(initial = 1)
    inject(initial) { |n, value| n * value }
  end
end

class Array
  include Inject
end
[ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ].sum → 15
[ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ].product → 120

class Range
  include Inject
end
(1..5).sum → 15
(1..5).product → 120
('a'..'m').sum("Letters: ") → "Letters: abcdefghijklm"

For a more extensive example of a mixin, have a look at the documentation for the Enumerable module.

Instance Variables in Mixins

People coming to Ruby from C++ often ask us, “What happens to instance variables in a mixin? In C++, I have to jump through some hoops to control how variables are shared in a multiple-inheritance hierarchy. How does Ruby handle this?”

Well, for starters, it's not really a fair question, we tell them. Remember how instance variables work in Ruby: the first mention of an “@”-prefixed variable creates the instance variable in the current object, self.

For a mixin, this means that the module that you mix into your client class (the mixee?) may create instance variables in the client object and may use attr and friends to define accessors for these instance variables. For instance:

module Notes
  attr  :concertA
  def tuning(amt)
    @concertA = 440.0 + amt
  end
end

class Trumpet
  include Notes
  def initialize(tune)
    tuning(tune)
    puts "Instance method returns #{concertA}"
    puts "Instance variable is #{@concertA}"
  end
end

# The piano is a little flat, so we'll match it
Trumpet.new(-5.3)

Not only do we have access to the methods defined in the mixin, but we get access to the necessary instance variables as well. There's a risk here, of course, that different mixins may use an instance variable with the same name and create a collision:

module MajorScales
  def majorNum
    @numNotes = 7 if @numNotes.nil?
    @numNotes # Return 7
  end
end

module PentatonicScales
  def pentaNum
    @numNotes = 5 if @numNotes.nil?
    @numNotes # Return 5?
  end
end

class ScaleDemo
  include MajorScales
  include PentatonicScales
  def initialize
    puts majorNum # Should be 7
    puts pentaNum # Should be 5
  end
end

ScaleDemo.new

The two bits of code that we mix in both use an instance variable named @numNotes. Unfortunately, the result is probably not what the author intended.

For the most part, mixin modules don't try to carry their own instance data around—they use accessors to retrieve data from the client object. But if you need to create a mixin that has to have its own state, ensure that the instance variables have unique names to distinguish them from any other mixins in the system (perhaps by using the module's name as part of the variable name).

Iterators and the Enumerable Module

You've probably noticed that the Ruby collection classes support a large number of operations that do various things with the collection: traverse it, sort it, and so on. You may be thinking, “Gee, it'd sure be nice if my class could support all these neat-o features, too!” (If you actually thought that, it's probably time to stop watching reruns of 1960s television shows.)

Well, your classes can support all these neat-o features, thanks to the magic of mixins and module Enumerable. All you have to do is write an iterator called each, which returns the elements of your collection in turn. Mix in Enumerable, and suddenly your class supports things such as map, include?, and find_all?. If the objects in your collection implement meaningful ordering semantics using the <=> method, you'll also get min, max, and sort.

Including Other Files

Because Ruby makes it easy to write good, modular code, you'll often find yourself producing small files containing some chunk of self-contained functionality—an interface to x, an algorithm to do y, and so on. Typically, you'll organize these files as class or module libraries.

Having produced these files, you'll want to incorporate them into your new programs. Ruby has two statements that do this.

The load method includes the named Ruby source file every time the method is executed, whereas require loads any given file only once. require has additional functionality: it can load shared binary libraries. Both routines accept relative and absolute paths. If given a relative path (or just a plain name), they'll search every directory in the current load path ($:, discussed in “Where Ruby Finds Its Modules”) for the file.

Files loaded using load and require can, of course, include other files, which include other files, and so on. What might not be obvious is that require is an executable statement—it may be inside an if statement, or it may include a string that was just built. The search path can be altered at runtime as well. Just add the directory you want to the string $:.

Since load will include the source unconditionally, you can use it to reload a source file that may have changed since the program began:

5.times do |i|
   File.open("temp.rb","w") { |f|
     f.puts "module Temp\ndef Temp.var() #{i}; end\nend"
   }
   load "temp.rb"
   puts Temp.var
 end

Extracted from the book "Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide"

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