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End of Life Ruby 3.0 has reached end of life and gets no more fixes. Switch to Ruby 4.0 →

instance method

Module#const_source_location

mod.const_source_location(sym, inherit=true) → [String, Integer]
mod.const_source_location(str, inherit=true) → [String, Integer]

Returns the Ruby source filename and line number containing the definition of the constant specified. If the named constant is not found, nil is returned. If the constant is found, but its source location can not be extracted (constant is defined in C code), empty array is returned.

inherit specifies whether to lookup in mod.ancestors (true by default).

Example
# test.rb:
class A         # line 1
  C1 = 1
  C2 = 2
end

module M        # line 6
  C3 = 3
end

class B < A     # line 10
  include M
  C4 = 4
end

class A # continuation of A definition
  C2 = 8 # constant redefinition; warned yet allowed
end

p B.const_source_location('C4')           # => ["test.rb", 12]
p B.const_source_location('C3')           # => ["test.rb", 7]
p B.const_source_location('C1')           # => ["test.rb", 2]

p B.const_source_location('C3', false)    # => nil  -- don't lookup in ancestors

p A.const_source_location('C2')           # => ["test.rb", 16] -- actual (last) definition place

p Object.const_source_location('B')       # => ["test.rb", 10] -- top-level constant could be looked through Object
p Object.const_source_location('A')       # => ["test.rb", 1] -- class reopening is NOT considered new definition

p B.const_source_location('A')            # => ["test.rb", 1]  -- because Object is in ancestors
p M.const_source_location('A')            # => ["test.rb", 1]  -- Object is not ancestor, but additionally checked for modules

p Object.const_source_location('A::C1')   # => ["test.rb", 2]  -- nesting is supported
p Object.const_source_location('String')  # => []  -- constant is defined in C code