In Ruby, how to tell two methods or two functions are the same?

Question

For example, to check whether

CGI::parse == CGI.parse

(after doing require "cgi" ), how can it be done?

Answer 1

CGI.parse is not valid code, since you are calling the method (without arguments, and the method requires one).

However, in ruby, (almost) everything is an object -- which includes methods! (A method is an instance of the class: Method .)

You can access the CGI::parse method via: CGI.method(:parse) .

Then, to check that two methods are equal, you can use the == method on the Method class :

CGI.method(:parse) == CGI.method(:parse) #=> true

From the ruby documentation:

Two method objects are equal if they are bound to the same object and refer to the same method definition and their owners are the same class or module.