How to access private methods

Question

My understanding is that private means being private to an instance. Private methods can't be called with an explicit receiver, even self. To call a private method, I have to go through a process like below:

class Sample   def foo     baz   end    private   def baz    end  end   Sample.new.foo 

This will call the private baz method. Is there a way to directly call a private method with an explicit receiver?

Answer 1

Yes, this is possible with Kernel#send:

receiver.send :method_name, parameters 

Though there are workarounds like BasicObject#instance_eval, or Kernel#binding manipulations, the common way to call private method is to call send on the receiver.

Answer 2

Using BasicObject#instance_eval, you can call private method.

class Sample   private   def baz     'baz called'   end end  Sample.new.instance_eval('baz') # => 'baz called' Sample.new.instance_eval { baz } # => 'baz called'