Dynamically Calling Ruby Methods by Name: A How-To Guide

If you're working with Ruby, you may come across a situation where you need to dynamically call a method by its name. Fortunately, Ruby makes this relatively easy to accomplish.

To dynamically call a Ruby method by name, you can use the send method. This method takes the name of the method you want to call as a symbol, and any arguments you want to pass to the method. For example, if you have a method called my_method and you want to call it dynamically, you can use the following code:

method_name = :my_method
object.send(method_name, arg1, arg2, ...)

In this code, object is the object that the method is being called on. If you're calling the method on the current object (i.e. "self"), you can omit the object parameter and simply call send on the method name:

method_name = :my_method
send(method_name, arg1, arg2, ...)

You can also use public_send instead of send if you only want to call public methods on the object.

If the method you want to call is defined on a module instead of a class or object, you can use the Module#method method to get a reference to the method, and then call it using send. For example:

module MyModule
  def my_method(arg)
    puts arg
  end
end

method_name = :my_method
method = MyModule.method(method_name)
method.call(arg)

In this code, we define a module called MyModule and a method called my_method. We then get a reference to the method using Module#method, and call it using call.

Overall, dynamically calling Ruby methods by name is a useful technique to have in your programming arsenal. With the send method and some knowledge of the object-oriented features of Ruby, you can easily call any method you need at runtime.