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On 5/31/06, Wes Gamble <weyus / att.net> wrote:
>
> I just ran into a seemingly weird problem until I discovered that the
> method that I kept trying to call as an instance method was in fact a
> class method.  But of course, there isn't anything in the signature to
> indicate that to me.  Apparently, if you do this:
>
> class << self
>   def x
>   end
> end
>
> then x is a class method, not an instance method.
>
> I'm having trouble finding a good explanation of this in the Pickaxe
> book - is someone willing to give me the low down.
>
> This appears to be the common idiom for defining class methods and I'd
> like to understand so I don't waste any more time.
>
> Thanks,
> Wes
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.


Here's an excerpt from Ruby for Rails by Black that does a good job of
explaining it...
<begin excerpt>
Defining class methods with class <<

By far the most frequent use of the class << notation for entering a
singleton method
class is in connection with class method definitions. You'll see this quite
often:
class Ticket
class << self
def most_expensive(tickets)
# etc.

This code results in a class method Ticket.most_expensive. That method could

also be defined like this (assuming this code comes at a point in the
program
where the Ticket class already exists):
class << Ticket
  def most_expensive(tickets)
  # etc.
Because self is Ticket inside the class Ticket definition body, class <<
self
inside the body is the same as class << Ticket outside the body.
(Technically, you
could do class << Ticket even inside the body of class Ticket, but in
practice
you'll usually see class << self whenever the object whose singleton class
needs
opening is self.)
 The fact that class << self shows up frequently in connection with the
crea-
tion of class methods sometimes leads to the false impression that the class
<<
notation can only be used to create class methods, or that the only
expression you
can legally put on the right is self. In fact, class << self inside a class
definition
block is just one case of the class << object notation. The technique is
general: It
puts you in a definition block for the singleton class of object, whatever
object
may be. That, in turn, means you're operating in a context where whatever
you
doÍØhatever you add to the classÍÑertains only to that one object.
 <end excerpt>

HTH,
Keith

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