How to I make private class constants in Ruby

Question

In Ruby how does one create a private class constant? (i.e one that is visible inside the class but not outside)

class Person
  SECRET=\'xxx\' # How to make clas         


        

Answer 1

Instead of a constant you can use a @@class_variable, which is always private.

class Person
  @@secret='xxx' # How to make class private??

  def show_secret
    puts "Secret: #{@@secret}"
  end
end
Person.new.show_secret
puts Person::@@secret
# doesn't work
puts Person.class_variable_get(:@@secret)
# This does work, but there's always a way to circumvent privateness in ruby

Of course then ruby will do nothing to enforce the constantness of @@secret, but ruby does very little to enforce constantness to begin with, so...