CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
bluejimmy
bluejimmy

Reputation: 410

What does instance variable that looks like this @my_variable inside a self.method mean?

I dont understand what an instance variable inside a class method does. Below code makes no sense to me. How can a class method manipulate an instance variable? I can call a class method without even having an instance.

def self.schema
    return @schema if @schema
    DB.table_info(table) do |row|
      @schema[row['name']] = row['type']
    @schema
end

Edit: follow up question after @Aetherus's answer.
What is first_name in the below code example? Why cant i access it as a class variable since it is inside class scope? Why does all 3 methods give me errors?

   class Person
     #class scope
      first_name = "jimmy"

       # expected error beacuse it would treat as local variable
      def print_name
        #instance scope
       first_name
      end

       #to my understanding this should work, but it doesnt. i dont know why
      def print_name_2
        #instance scope
        #with self.class i should be able to access class scope?
        self.class.first_name
      end  

      #to my understading this should work, but it doesnt. I dont know why.   
      def self.print_name
        #class scope
        #inside class scope, i should able to access first_name?
        first_name
       end

    end

Upvotes: 3

Views: 127

Answers (1)

Aetherus
Aetherus

Reputation: 8898

In short, these instance variables belong to the class, not the instances of that class.

To understand it, you need to know more about Ruby.

Classes are objects

In Ruby, all the classes are just objects of type Class.

String.class  #=> Class
Array.class   #=> Class
Class.class   #=> Class

And you can define anonymous classes by instantiating Class

foo = Class.new do
  # Here you can define methods
end

foo.new  #=> an instance of an anonymous class

Because classes are objects, they can have instance variables too.

Gate of scopes

There are 4 keywords that triggers scope switching: module, class, def and do (for blocks). Here I only show the class and def.

# in the scope of main

class Foo
  # in the scope of Foo

  def self.bar
    # still in the scope of Foo
  end

  # in the scope of Foo

  def bar
    # in the scope of an instance of Foo
  end

  # back to the scope of Foo again
end

# back to the scope of main

The instance variables defined in a scope belongs to the current object (a.k.a. self) of that scope. In the previous example, if you define a instance variable in the scope of Foo, that instance variable belongs to the self of that scope, which is the class Foo.

Upvotes: 2

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