Is there a way to view (or print) a method definition programatically in rails?

Question

Let's say I have a function called bla defined somewhere in my rails app.

Is there a way in ruby or rails through which I can print the code dynamically/programmatically used to define that function ? So for example:

def bla
   puts "Hi There"
end

and then if I call a function like, for example, get_definition:

puts get_definition(:bla)

this would print out

"puts \"Hi There\""

Is there a canonical way of doing this ? I haven't actually needed to do this before, and I know this is not really common practice in rails.

I also don't want to define my method using meta (reflective) programming and then store the string used to define my method. Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

I have no idea what John Hyland is writing about. There is no such method (in plain Ruby) as Method#source. The practical solution is to use the pry gem. It has methods to let you access the source.