Method: Module#const_missing

Defined in:

variable.c

#const_missing(sym) ⇒ Object

Invoked when a reference is made to an undefined constant in mod. It is passed a symbol for the undefined constant, and returns a value to be used for that constant. For example, consider:

def Foo.const_missing(name)
  name # return the constant name as Symbol
end

Foo::UNDEFINED_CONST    #=> :UNDEFINED_CONST: symbol returned

As the example above shows, const_missing is not required to create the missing constant in mod, though that is often a side-effect. The caller gets its return value when triggered. If the constant is also defined, further lookups won’t hit const_missing and will return the value stored in the constant as usual. Otherwise, const_missing will be invoked again.

In the next example, when a reference is made to an undefined constant, const_missing attempts to load a file whose path is the lowercase version of the constant name (thus class Fred is assumed to be in file fred.rb). If defined as a side-effect of loading the file, the method returns the value stored in the constant. This implements an autoload feature similar to Kernel#autoload and Module#autoload, though it differs in important ways.

def Object.const_missing(name)
  @looked_for ||= {}
  str_name = name.to_s
  raise "Constant not found: #{name}" if @looked_for[str_name]
  @looked_for[str_name] = 1
  file = str_name.downcase
  require file
  const_get(name, false)
end

Returns:

• (Object)

# File 'variable.c', line 2421

VALUE
rb_mod_const_missing(VALUE klass, VALUE name)
{
    rb_execution_context_t *ec = GET_EC();
    VALUE ref = ec->private_const_reference;
    rb_vm_pop_cfunc_frame();
    if (ref) {
        ec->private_const_reference = 0;
        rb_name_err_raise("private constant %2$s::%1$s referenced", ref, name);
    }
    uninitialized_constant(klass, name);

    UNREACHABLE_RETURN(Qnil);
}