It is known that in Ruby, class methods get inherited:
class P
def self.mm; puts 'abc' end
end
class Q < P; end
Q.mm # works
However, it comes as a surprise to me that it does not work with mixins:
module M
def self.mm; puts 'mixin' end
end
class N; include M end
M.mm # works
N.mm # does not work!
I know that #extend method can do this:
module X; def mm; puts 'extender' end end
Y = Class.new.extend X
X.mm # works
But I am writing a mixin (or, rather, would like to write) containing both instance methods and class methods:
module Common
def self.class_method; puts "class method here" end
def instance_method; puts "instance method here" end
end
Now what I would like to do is this:
class A; include Common
# custom part for A
end
class B; include Common
# custom part for B
end
I want A, B inherit both instance and class methods from Common module. But, of course, that does not work. So, isn't there a secret way of making this inheritance work from a single module?
It seems inelegant to me to split this into two different modules, one to include, the other to extend. Another possible solution would be to use a class Common instead of a module. But this is just a workaround. (What if there are two sets of common functionalities Common1 and Common2 and we really need to have mixins?) Is there any deep reason why class method inheritance does not work from mixins?