Ragot

A hack to create hooks around methods, either unobstrusive, with no change whatsoever in the source of the targeted code, or with the use of Ragot inherited class methods before and after.

Ruby 2.* (i guess). Install it with rubygems: gem install ragot With bundler, add it to your Gemfile: gem ragot

require 'ragot'
Ragot.about String, :upcase           # only to show it's easy, not to tell you it's a good idea...
"example".upcase
# puts `upcase` called, with params : []. Got 'EXAMPLE' as result, at 2016-09-25 20:47:14 +0200 .0821934
=> "EXAMPLE"

Ragot.about can be declared anywhere given the targeted class (or module) is already defined.

Targeted methods don't even need to be defined. If not already, they'll be hooked when added to the targeted class or module.

Let's say you have Person class in an App, itself with a log method.

• block

It is executed in instance context. The return value of the targeted method, as welle as the arguments passed to it, are yielded to the block.

Ragot.about Person, :save do |save_return_value, *params|
  # code executed in instance context, `full_name`, `department`, `errors` are Person instance methods
  if save_return_value
    App.log "#{full_name} created, and added to #{department} at #{Time.now}"
  else
    App.log "Problem : #{errors} when trying to create #{full_name}"
  end
end

• hook

Option default is after, but can be set to before.

Ragot.about Person, :change_status, hook: :before do |new_status_param|
  App.log "#{full_name} status was #{status} before it was changed to #{new_status_param}"
end

• class

You want to hook a class, instead of instance, method.

Ragot.about Person, :name, class: true do |name, *empty_params|
  App.log "#{self} class is asked its name again !" # self is singleton_class
end

• failsafe

You don't want to allow a hook to crash your application.

Ragot.about Person, :cleanup_info, failsafe: true do |result, *info_to_clean|
  self.risky_external_push! info_to_clean # won't crash your app even though API call went wrong
end

• env

You may want to setup a hook only in a given set of environments. This option will be compared to Ragot.env value, which can be set as such :

Ragot.env = App.env

Ragot.about Person, :save, env: ['staging', 'production'] do |save_return_value|
  if save_return_value
    self.costly_stats_gathering! # that you don't want to do in 'development'
  end
end

• stamp

This will timestamp a call to a method.

irb(main):001:0> require 'ragot'
irb(main):001:0> Ragot.about Person, :suspicious_behaviour_method, stamp: true
irb(main):002:0> Person.new.suspicious_behaviour_method
Entered to_s, with params '[]', at <this time>
Entered to_s, with params '[]', at <this other time>
Entered to_s, with params '[]', at <this yet other time>
=> "suspicious_behaviour_method_result" # called three times then...

before and after are available as class methods when Ragot is included.

They have the same behaviour and options as about above (except the hook option).

If before or after methods already exist in class or module, Ragot's won't overload them. You would still have access to ragot_before and ragot_after methods to which before or after are aliases anyway.

class PersonAssignment
  include Ragot

  after :person= do |person, person|
    App.log "#{person.full_name} was given a new job as #{self.name}"
  end
end

• callbacks

Any occurrence when you need to do something that is not the job per se of your application. You then don't want to your class declaration to be clumbered by bits you consider extraneous.

It can be logging, stats, external API push, ...

• debug

Also, when you don't understand the behaviour of a library, or experience a crash. You can get help from Ragot to take a closer look without ripping it open and garble its code with you traces.

Ragot.about JSON, :dump, class: true, stamp: true
=> :dump
JSON.dump({a: 1})
Entered dump, with params '[]',{:a=>1} at 2016-09-26 02:32:12 +0200 .553876
`dump` called, with params : '[{:a=>1}]'. Got '{"a":1}' as result, at 2016-09-26 02:32:12 +0200 .5540571
=> "{\"a\":1}"

Eager and sincere thanks to all the Ruby guys and chicks for making all this so easy to devise.

I was tempted by the WTFPL, but i have to take time to read it. So far see LICENSE.