How do I dynamically define a method as private?

Question

This does not seem to work:

class Test
  private

  define_method :private_method do 
    \"uh!\"
  end
end

puts Test.new.private_method

Answer 1

Module#private takes an optional argument for the method name:

class Test
 private :private_method
end

The above is of course equivalent to

Test.private :private_method # doesn't work

Except that Module#private is private, so you have to use reflection to circumvent the access restrictions:

Test.send :private, :private_method

No eval necessary.