Methods in Ruby: objects or not?

ruby object methods language-features
Mladen Jablanović picture Mladen Jablanović · Apr 8, 2010 · Viewed 10.1k times · Source

Inspired by this discussion, after some googling I wasn't able to find an answer to a pretty simple question regarding methods in Ruby: are methods objects or not?

There are different opinions here and there, and I would really like to hear, let's say, an in-depth explanation.

I'm aware of Object#method method, which takes a method name and returns a Method instance, but, on the other hand, there's a similar thing you can do with blocks to make them into Proc instances, and blocks aren't objects, so what makes methods any different?

Answer

JRL picture JRL · Apr 8, 2010

Methods are a fundamental part of Ruby's syntax, but they are not values that Ruby programs can operate on. That is, Ruby's methods are not objects in the way that strings, numbers, and arrays are. It is possible, however, to obtain a Method object that represents a given method, and we can invoke methods indirectly through Method objects.

From The Ruby Programming Language:
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