Skip to content

Maintenance Ruby 3.3 gets fixes, but no new features. Switch to Ruby 4.0 →

instance method

Module#module_eval

mod.module_eval(string [, filename [, lineno]]) → obj
mod.module_eval {|mod| block } → obj

Evaluates the string or block in the context of mod, except that when a block is given, constant/class variable lookup is not affected. This can be used to add methods to a class. module_eval returns the result of evaluating its argument. The optional filename and lineno parameters set the text for error messages.

Example
class Thing
end
a = %q{def hello() "Hello there!" end}
Thing.module_eval(a)
puts Thing.new.hello()
Thing.module_eval("invalid code", "dummy", 123)

produces:

Hello there!
dummy:123:in `module_eval': undefined local variable
    or method `code' for Thing:Class