A few people have asked: what is the dealio with ActiveSupport::Concern? My answer: it encapsulates a few common patterns for building modules intended for mixins. Before understanding why ActiveSupport::Concern is useful, we first need to understand Ruby mixins.

Here we go...!

First, the Ruby object model:

http://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/05/08/how-ruby-method-dispatch-works/ http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Class.html

As you can see mixins are "virtual classes" that have been injected in a class's or module's ancestor chain. That is, this:

module MyMod
end

class Base
end

class Child < Base
  include MyMod
end

# irb> Child.ancestors
#  => [Child, MyMod, Base, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

results in the same ancestor chain as this:

class Base
end

class MyMod < Base
end

class Child < MyMod
end

# irb> Child.ancestors
#  => [Child, MyMod, Base, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

Great? Great.

Modules can also be used to extend objects, for example:

my_obj = Object.new
my_obj.extend MyMod

# irb> my_obj.singleton_class.ancestors
#  => [MyMod, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

In Ruby, every object has a singleton class. Object#extend does what Module#include does but on an object's singleton class. That is, the following is equivalent to the above:

my_obj = Object.new
my_obj.singleton_class.class_eval do
  include MyMod
end

# irb> my_obj.singleton_class.ancestors
#  => [MyMod, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

This is how "static" or "class" methods work in Ruby. Actually, there's no such thing as static/class methods in Ruby. Rather, there are methods on a class's singleton class. For example, w.r.t. the ancestors chain, the following are equivalent:

class MyClass
  extend MyMod
end

# irb> MyClass.singleton_class.ancestors
#  => [MyMod, Class, Module, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

class MyClass
  class << self
    include MyMod
  end
end

# irb> MyClass.singleton_class.ancestors
#  => [MyMod, Class, Module, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

Classes are just objects "acting" as "classes".

Back to mixins...

Ruby provides some hooks for modules when they are being mixed into classes/modules: http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Module.html#method-i-included http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Module.html#method-i-extended

For example:

module MyMod
  def self.included(target)
    puts "included into #{target}"
  end

  def self.extended(target)
    puts "extended into #{target}"
  end
end

class MyClass
  include MyMod
end
# irb>
# included into MyClass

class MyClass2
  extend MyMod
end
# irb>
# extended into MyClass2

# irb> MyClass.ancestors
# => [MyClass, MyMod, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]
# irb> MyClass.singleton_class.ancestors
# => [Class, Module, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

# irb> MyClass2.ancestors
# => [MyClass2, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]
# irb> MyClass2.singleton_class.ancestors
# => [MyMod, Class, Module, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

Great? Great.

Back to ActiveSupport::Concern...

Over time it became a common pattern in the Ruby worldz to create modules intended for use as mixins like this:

module MyMod
  def self.included(target)
    target.send(:include, InstanceMethods)
    target.extend ClassMethods
    target.class_eval do
      a_class_method
    end
  end

  module InstanceMethods
    def an_instance_method
    end
  end

  module ClassMethods
    def a_class_method
      puts "a_class_method called"
    end
  end
end

class MyClass
  include MyMod
# irb> end
# a_class_method called
end

# irb> MyClass.ancestors
#  => [MyClass, MyMod::InstanceMethods, MyMod, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]
# irb> MyClass.singleton_class.ancestors
#  => [MyMod::ClassMethods, Class, Module, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

As you can see, this single module is adding instance methods, "class" methods, and acting directly on the target class (calling a_class_method() in this case).

ActiveSupport::Concern encapsulates this pattern. Here's the same module rewritten to use ActiveSupport::Concern:

module MyMod
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  included do
    a_class_method
  end

  def an_instance_method
  end

  module ClassMethods
    def a_class_method
      puts "a_class_method called"
    end
  end
end

You'll notice the nested InstanceMethods is removed and an_instance_method() is defined directly on the module. This is because this is standard Ruby; given the ancestors of MyClass ([MyClass, MyMod::InstanceMethods, MyMod, Object, Kernel]) there's no need for a MyMod::InstanceMethods since methods on MyMod are already in the chain.

So far ActiveSupport::Concern has taken away some of the boilerplate code used in the pattern: no need to define an included hook, no need to extend the target class with ClassMethods, no need to class_eval on the target class.

The last thing that ActiveSupport::Concern does is what I call lazy evaluation. What's that?

Back to Ruby mixins...

Consider:

module MyModA
end

module MyModB
  include MyModA
end

class MyClass
  include MyModB
end

# irb> MyClass.ancestors
#  => [MyClass, MyModB, MyModA, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

Let's say MyModA wanted to do something special when included into the target class, say:

module MyModA
  def self.included(target)
    target.class_eval do
      has_many :squirrels
    end
  end
end

When MyModA is included in MyModB, the code in the included() hook will run, and if has_many() is not defined on MyModB things will break:

irb :050 > module MyModB
irb :051?>   include MyModA
irb :052?> end
NoMethodError: undefined method `has_many' for MyModB:Module
 from (irb):46:in `included'
 from (irb):45:in `class_eval'
 from (irb):45:in `included'
 from (irb):51:in `include'

ActiveSupport::Concern skirts around this issue by delaying all the included hooks from running until a module is included into a non-ActiveSupport::Concern. Redefining the above using ActiveSupport::Concern:

module MyModA
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  included do
    has_many :squirrels
  end
end

module MyModB
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern
  include MyModA
end

class MyClass
  def self.has_many(*args)
    puts "has_many(#{args.inspect}) called"
  end

  include MyModB
# irb>
# has_many([:squirrels]) called
end

# irb> MyClass.ancestors
#  => [MyClass, MyModB, MyModA, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]
# irb> MyClass.singleton_class.ancestors
#  => [Class, Module, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]

Great? Great.

But why is ActiveSupport::Concern called "Concern"? The name Concern comes from AOP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect-oriented_programming). Concerns in AOP encapsulate a "cohesive area of functionality". Mixins act as Concerns when they provide cohesive chunks of functionality to the target class. Turns out using mixins in this fashion is a very common practice.

ActiveSupport::Concern provides the mechanics to encapsulate a cohesive chunk of functionality into a mixin that can extend the behavior of the target class by annotating the class' ancestor chain, annotating the class' singleton class' ancestor chain, and directly manipulating the target class through the included() hook.

So....

Is every mixin a Concern? No. Is every ActiveSupport::Concern a Concern? No.

While I've used ActiveSupport::Concern to build actual Concerns, I've also used it to avoid writing out the boilerplate code mentioned above. If I just need to share some instance methods and nothing else, then I'll use a bare module.

Modules, mixins and ActiveSupport::Concern are just tools in your toolbox to accomplish the task at hand. It's up to you to know how the tools work and when to use them.

I hope that helps somebody.

Engineering Blog

Ruby Mixins & ActiveSupport::Concern

First, the Ruby object model:

Back to mixins...

Back to ActiveSupport::Concern...

Back to Ruby mixins...

Engineering Blog

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