Should Flash::add_flash_types be public?

[Nuno Silva]

While playing around with gem `traceroute` (0.5.0) I noticed that my additional flash types:

# application_controller.rb
# ...
add_flash_types :success

add_flash_types :error
# ...

are "leaking" into public scope of every controller descendent of ApplicationController:

ApplicationController.new.method(:error).source_location
ApplicationController.new.method(:success).source_location

I wonder if add_flash_types should define the new methods as protected, since it might lead into conflicts with actual controller actions.

You can see this "leaking" with the gem or just with this:

ApplicationController.descendants.map { |ctrl| 

  ctrl.action_methods.map { |action| 

    ctrl.name + "#" + action

  }

}.flatten

This is trivial to accomplish - simply change it to:

#...
define_method(type) do

  request.flash[type]

end
protected type

helper_method type
#...