[ruby-core:116253] [Ruby master Feature#19742] Introduce `Module#anonymous?`

Issue #19742 has been updated by fxn (Xavier Noria). @jeremyevans0 I agree. My defense of `anonymous == name.nil?` is based on the meaning of the adjective, as you said. You are anonymous unless you have a name. The discrepancy in this thread comes from "I have use cases in which I want to know if it does not have a permanent name". Well, fair enough, but that does not mean `anonymous?` is a good name. For example, `permanent_name.nil?` is crystal clear in contrast, and the correspondence would be `permanent_name?` (not proposing, just for the sake of the argument). For example, `marshal.c` now just checks if the name starts with `#`, I suspect this is also out-of-date now. You should check if the permanent name is `nil`. ---------------------------------------- Feature #19742: Introduce `Module#anonymous?` https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19742#change-106274 * Author: ioquatix (Samuel Williams) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal ---------------------------------------- As a follow-on <from https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19521>gt;, I'd like propose we introduce `Module#anonymous?`. In some situations, like logging/formatting, serialisation/deserialization, debugging or meta-programming, we might like to know if a class is a proper constant or not. However, this brings about some other issues which might need to be discussed. After assigning a constant, then removing it, the internal state of Ruby still believes that the class name is permanent, even thought it's no longer true. e.g. ``` m = Module.new m.anonymous? # true M = m m.anonyomous # false Object.send(:remove_const, :M) M # uninitialized constant M (NameError) m.anonymous? # false ``` Because RCLASS data structure is not updated after the constant is removed, internally the state still has a "permanent class name". I want to use this proposal to discuss this issue and whether there is anything we should do about such behaviour (or even if it's desirable). Proposed PR: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/7966 cc @fxn -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/