So, this works:

protected :new, :hello

Because protected is passed all the symbols you want to protect. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work:

protected
  def hello
     "hello"
  end

Because it appears that kernel magic is suppressed (can anyone enlighten?)

Therefore, recommend you stay with the solution (in the blog post).

Anyway, for posterity, here is an almost-but-not-quite-solution:

class Module
	alias mcp_protected protected

	def protected(*args)
		if args.member? :new
			protect_ctor
			args = args - [:new]
		end
		args.each do |arg|; mcp_protected arg; end
	end
end

class Class
	def protect_ctor
		class_eval(%Q[
			class < < self
				mcp_protected :new

				def inherited(klass)
					klass.class_eval do
						def self.new(*args); super; end
					end
				end
			end
		])
	end
end

Nice work!

Minor bug report.. If you want to put ‘protect_constructor’ in ‘Class’ you need to drop the self. Ie,

def protect_constructor
class_eval…

Alternatively, you can put ‘protect_constructor’ in ‘Object’ with the explicit self reference.

Cheers,
Lawrence & James