ruby-core

Issue #9781 has been updated by Richard Schneeman.


I am also not in love with the naming. I would have preferred `Method#super` but we don't want to overwrite `super` or confuse functionality here. Maybe something along the lines of `get_super`. Does anyone have a better naming suggestion?

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Feature #9781: Feature Proposal: Method#super_method
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/9781#change-47148

* Author: Richard Schneeman
* Status: Feedback
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: Yukihiro Matsumoto
* Category: core
* Target version: current: 2.2.0
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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.




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