This method returns the binding of the method that called your method. It will raise an Exception when you’re not inside a method.

It’s used like this:

def inc_counter(amount = 1)
  Binding.of_caller do |binding|
    # Create a lambda that will increase the variable 'counter'
    # in the caller of this method when called.
    inc = eval("lambda { |arg| counter += arg }", binding)
    # We can refer to amount from inside this block safely.
    inc.call(amount)
  end
  # No other statements can go here. Put them inside the block.
end
counter = 0
2.times { inc_counter }
counter # => 2

Binding.of_caller must be the last statement in the method. This means that you will have to put everything you want to do after the call to Binding.of_caller into the block of it. This should be no problem however, because Ruby has closures. If you don’t do this an Exception will be raised. Because of the way that Binding.of_caller is implemented it has to be done this way.

Source Code

# File binding_of_caller.rb, line 40
def Binding.of_caller(&block)
old_critical = Thread.critical
Thread.critical = true
count = 0
cc, result, error, extra_data = Continuation.create(nil, nil)
error.call if error

tracer = lambda do |*args|
  type, context, extra_data = args[0], args[4], args
  if type == "return"
    count += 1
    # First this method and then calling one will return --
    # the trace event of the second event gets the context
    # of the method which called the method that called this
    # method.
    if count == 2
      # It would be nice if we could restore the trace_func
      # that was set before we swapped in our own one, but
      # this is impossible without overloading set_trace_func
      # in current Ruby.
      set_trace_func(nil)
      cc.call(eval("binding", context), nil, extra_data)
    end
  elsif type == "line" then
    nil
  elsif type == "c-return" and extra_data[3] == :set_trace_func then
    nil
  else
    set_trace_func(nil)
    error_msg = "Binding.of_caller used in non-method context or " +
      "trailing statements of method using it aren't in the block."
    cc.call(nil, lambda { raise(ArgumentError, error_msg) }, nil)
  end
end

unless result
  set_trace_func(tracer)
  return nil
else
  Thread.critical = old_critical
  case block.arity
    when 1 then yield(result)
    else yield(result, extra_data)        
  end
end
end