Can I invoke an instance method on a Ruby module without including it?

If a method on a module is turned into a module function you can simply call it off of Mods as if it had been declared as

module Mods
  def self.foo
     puts "Mods.foo(self)"
  end
end

The module_function approach below will avoid breaking any classes which include all of Mods.

module Mods
  def foo
    puts "Mods.foo"
  end
end

class Includer
  include Mods
end

Includer.new.foo

Mods.module_eval do
  module_function(:foo)
  public :foo
end

Includer.new.foo # this would break without public :foo above

class Thing
  def bar
    Mods.foo
  end
end

Thing.new.bar  

However, I'm curious why a set of unrelated functions are all contained within the same module in the first place?

Edited to show that includes still work if public :foo is called after module_function :foo

If you want to call these methods without including module in another class then you need to define them as module methods:

module UsefulThings
  def self.get_file; ...
  def self.delete_file; ...

  def self.format_text(x); ...
end

and then you can call them with

UsefulThings.format_text("xxx")

or

UsefulThings::format_text("xxx")

But anyway I would recommend that you put just related methods in one module or in one class. If you have problem that you want to include just one method from module then it sounds like a bad code smell and it is not good Ruby style to put unrelated methods together.

I think the shortest way to do just throw-away single call (without altering existing modules or creating new ones) would be as follows:

Class.new.extend(UsefulThings).get_file

Another way to do it if you "own" the module is to use module_function.

module UsefulThings
  def a
    puts "aaay"
  end
  module_function :a

  def b
    puts "beee"
  end
end

def test
  UsefulThings.a
  UsefulThings.b # Fails!  Not a module method
end

test