[ruby-core:108765] [Ruby master Bug#18435] Calling `protected` on ancestor method changes result of `instance_methods(false)`

["matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)" <noreply@ruby-lang.org>]

Issue #18435 has been updated by matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto).

Status changed from Closed to Open

I thought it was OK to accept this behavior, but it caused issues like #18729 and #18751. At the time of the decision, I haven't noticed those corner cases. Although it has already been shipped with 3.1, I proposed to revert this change. I estimate the impact of reverting incompatibility is minimal.

Instead of changing old behavior, the documentation of `instance_methods(false)` should be updated to explain why `method1` is included in the above example (visibility changes or making aliases are considered as *definition* by `instance_methods`).

Matz.



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Bug #18435: Calling `protected` on ancestor method changes result of `instance_methods(false)`
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/18435#change-97830

* Author: ufuk (Ufuk Kayserilioglu)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
* ruby -v: ruby 2.7.5p203 (2021-11-24 revision f69aeb8314) [x86_64-darwin20]
* Backport: 2.6: UNKNOWN, 2.7: UNKNOWN, 3.0: UNKNOWN, 3.1: UNKNOWN
----------------------------------------
As documented `instance_methods(false)` works as follows:

```ruby
module A
  def method1()  end
end

class B
  include A

  def method2()  end
end

p B.instance_methods(false) #=> [:method2]
```

However, calling `protected` on the method defined by `A`, unexpectedly changes the result of `instance_methods(false)` on `B`, even though the owner of the method is still `A`:
```ruby
module A
  def method1()  end
end

class B
  include A

  protected :method1

  def method2()  end
end

p B.instance_methods(false) #=> [:method1, :method2]
p B.instance_method(:method1).owner #=> A
```

In contrast, calling `private` or `public` on the same method does not cause any changes on the result of `B.instance_methods(false)`.

This feels like a bug in the implementation of `instance_methods(false)`, but, if it is by design, it should at least be documented on `Module#instance_methods`.

This reproduction script gives the same output all the way from Ruby 2.0 up to Ruby-HEAD:
https://wandbox.org/permlink/LqbXMBTYxURRZmDz



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