Method alias in ruby

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You can create aliases for a method and variable name in ruby. This can be helpful if you want to override the behavior of some method without changing the origin implementation of it. alias_method take a new_name as a copy name of the old_name and it has the following syntax.

alias_method (new_name, old_name)

A small example:

class Davi
  def capital
    puts "Karaz-a-Karak"
  end

  alias_method :orig_capital, :capital

  def capital
    puts "Karaz-a-Karak rebuild"
    orig_capital
  end
end

davi = Davi.new
davi.capital

# output
"Karaz-a-Karak rebuild"
"Karaz-a-Karak"

What is the difference between alias and alias_method

Alias will looks at the value of self lexically where the aliased keyword lies. Alias_method use the value of self during runtime which may be a subclass where the call is lexically located. Consider the following example to understand what I mean:

class A
  def self.swap
    alias bar foo
  end
  def foo; "A foo"; end
end
class B < A
  def foo; "B foo"; end
  swap
end
puts B.new.bar
# => "A foo"

class Y
  def self.swap
    alias_method :bar, :foo
  end
  def foo; "Y foo"; end
end
class Z < Y
  def foo; "Z foo"; end
  swap
end
puts Z.new.bar
# => "Z foo"

Conclusion

It is possible with alias_method to reopen a class, override a method call and you can still use the original call. In order to maintain backward compatibility alias_method are used in plugins, extensions, deprecating variables. Alias_method can be used in Rails to define action with duplicated content and remove duplicated code.

Here the duplicated variant:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  def home
    list
  end

  def find
    list
  end

  def search
    list
  end
end

The DRY variant:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  def home
    list
  end

  alias_method :find, :home
  alias_method :search, :home
end

Further reading