Why does `send` fail with Ruby 2.0 refinement?

Question

Why does this not work?

module StringRefinement
  refine String do
    def bar
      length
    end
  end
end

using StringRefinement
"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".send(:bar)
#NoMethodError: undefined method 'bar' for "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz":String

Can someone explain why send doesn't work here? And is there a way to dynamically call methods defined in a refinement? I can't seem to find a good, full explanation of how refinements work in Ruby 2.0.

Answer 1

Because the specification says so:

Indirect method accesses

Any indirect method access such as Kernel#send, Kernel#method, and Kernel#respond_to? shall not honor refinements in the caller context during method lookup.