Monkey patch

Common card · No. 335848

Monkey patch is the act of dynamically modifying the runtime code (not the source code) of a dynamic programming language, and it is the information (data/code) used to modify the runtime code. Monkey patching adds or replaces programming aspects like methods, classes, attributes, and functions in memory. Modifying the runtime code allows for modifying the behavior of third-party software without maintaining a modified version of the source code. The term monkey patch seems to have come from an earlier term, guerrilla patch, which referred to changing code sneakily – and possibly incompatibly with other such patches – at runtime. The word guerrilla, nearly homophonous with gorilla, became monkey, possibly to make the patch sound less intimidating. Despite the name's suggestion, a monkey patch is sometimes the official method of extending a program. For example, web browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer used to encourage this, although today browsers (including Firefox) support...

Read on Wikipedia