Dynamic refinements

Refinements have special limitations.

refine can only be used in a module scope, but can be programmed using send :refine.

using is more limited. It can only be called in a class/module definition. Still, it can accept a variable pointing to a module, and can be invoked in a loop.

An example showing these concepts:

module Patch
  def patched?; true; end
end

Patch.send(:refine, String) { include Patch }

patch_classes = [Patch]

class Patched
  patch_classes.each { |klass| using klass }
  "".patched? # => true
end

Since using is so static, there can be issued with load order if the refinement files are not loaded first. A way to address this is to wrap the patched class/module definition in a proc. For example:

module Patch
  refine String do
    def patched; true; end
  end
end

class Foo
end

# This is a proc since methods can't contain class definitions
create_patched_class = Proc.new do
  Foo.class_exec do
    class Bar
      using Patch
      def self.patched?; ''.patched == true; end
    end
  end
end
create_patched_class.call
Foo::Bar.patched? # => true

Calling the proc creates the patched class Foo::Bar. This can be delayed until after all the code has loaded.