Issue #19633 has been updated by Dan0042 (Daniel DeLorme). I'm bumping this because just today I wished Ruby had this feature (although the discussion above seems to have diverged quite a bit) ```ruby Dependencies = {} def require_dep(filename) Dependencies[filename] = [Time.now] require filename Dependencies[filename] << Time.now end autoload :MyDependency do require_dep "mydependency" end ``` ---------------------------------------- Feature #19633: Allow passing block to `Kernel#autoload` as alternative to second `filename` argument https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19633#change-117537 * Author: shioyama (Chris Salzberg) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- `Kernel#autoload` takes two arguments, a symbol `module` representing the constant to be autoloaded, and a `filepath` to load the constant from (with `require`). Currently, Zeitwerk has to [monkeypatch `Kernel#require`](https://github.com/fxn/zeitwerk/blob/a7c4a983df0f4e4058f32c610dac1e8b99f687d...) to fetch the loader for the file being loaded, then run the original (aliased) `require`, then run autoload callbacks. In addition to the monkeypatch, this also requires a registry (`Zeitwerk::Registry`) to map file paths to loaders, to know which loader should be used for a given autoload-triggered `require`. In fact, Zeitwerk has to _assume_ that the monkey-patched `require` call came from an autoload trigger; there is no way to really be sure of the source. If Ruby allowed passing a block as an alternative to the explicit filepath, then I think this could be improved and would eliminate the need for a monkeypatch. So something like this: ```ruby autoload(:B) do require "lib/b" # trigger callback, etc end ``` I am implementing a gem called [Im](https://github.com/shioyama/im) which is a fork of Zeitwerk, and in the case of this gem, such a feature would be even more useful. Im implements autoloads on anonymous modules by registering an autoload and then "catching" the require and converting it into a `load`, passing the module as the second argument (see [here](https://github.com/shioyama/im/blob/44ce348639a1aae563a5be7a40602761e9698d43...).) This is currently quite tricky because, again, it's hard to know _where_ a `require` came from. In addition to removing the monkeypatch (inherited from Zeitwerk), Im would further benefit from the block argument because then it could simply access the module via a closure, rather than pulling it from a registry: ```ruby mod.autoload(:Foo) do load "lib/foo.rb", mod end ``` I don't know how hard or easy this would be to implement, but if there is interest in this as a feature I'd be happy to look into implementing it. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/