Should I use alias or alias_method?

Question

I found a blog post on alias vs. alias_method. As shown in the example given in that blog post, I simply want to alias a method to another within t

Answer 1

Apart from the syntax, the main difference is in the scoping:

# scoping with alias_method
class User

  def full_name
    puts "Johnnie Walker"
  end

  def self.add_rename
    alias_method :name, :full_name
  end

end

class Developer < User
  def full_name
    puts "Geeky geek"
  end
  add_rename
end

Developer.new.name #=> 'Geeky geek'

In the above case method “name” picks the method “full_name” defined in “Developer” class. Now lets try with alias.

class User

  def full_name
    puts "Johnnie Walker"
  end

  def self.add_rename
    alias name full_name
  end
end

class Developer < User
  def full_name
    puts "Geeky geek"
  end
  add_rename
end

Developer.new.name #=> 'Johnnie Walker'

With the usage of alias the method “name” is not able to pick the method “full_name” defined in Developer.

This is because alias is a keyword and it is lexically scoped. It means it treats self as the value of self at the time the source code was read . In contrast alias_method treats self as the value determined at the run time.

Source: http://blog.bigbinary.com/2012/01/08/alias-vs-alias-method.html