alias vs alias_method

It comes up very often. Should I use alias or alias_method . Let's take a look at them in a bit detail.

Usage of alias

1class User
2
3  def full_name
4    puts "Johnnie Walker"
5  end
6
7  alias name full_name
8end
9
10User.new.name #=>Johnnie Walker
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Usage of alias_method

1class User
2
3  def full_name
4    puts "Johnnie Walker"
5  end
6
7  alias_method :name, :full_name
8end
9
10User.new.name #=>Johnnie Walker
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First difference you will notice is that in case of alias_method we need to use a comma between the "new method name" and "old method name".

alias_method takes both symbols and strings as input. Following code would also work.

1alias_method 'name', 'full_name'
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That was easy. Now let's take a look at how scoping impacts usage of alias and alias_method .

Scoping with alias

1class User
2
3  def full_name
4    puts "Johnnie Walker"
5  end
6
7  def self.add_rename
8    alias_method :name, :full_name
9  end
10end
11
12class Developer < User
13  def full_name
14    puts "Geeky geek"
15  end
16  add_rename
17end
18
19Developer.new.name #=> 'Gekky geek'
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In the above case method "name" picks the method "full_name" defined in "Developer" class. Now let's try with alias.

1class User
2
3  def full_name
4    puts "Johnnie Walker"
5  end
6
7  def self.add_rename
8    alias :name :full_name
9  end
10end
11
12class Developer < User
13  def full_name
14    puts "Geeky geek"
15  end
16  add_rename
17end
18
19Developer.new.name #=> 'Johnnie Walker'
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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.

Overall my recommendation would be to use alias_method. Since alias_method is a method defined in class Module it can be overridden later and it offers more flexibility.