# Description, what is it?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/description-what-is-it/150753>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 12, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/description-what-is-it/150753 "2008-10-12T17:12:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubyernewbie)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/description-what-is-it/150753/1 "2008-10-12T17:12:38Z")

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I read a class like this.what’s the description work for?

class Employee  
description “xxxxxxxx”  
#some code continue here  
end

---

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**Author:** ![rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubyernewbie)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/description-what-is-it/150753/2 "2008-10-12T19:45:01Z")

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Zhenning G. wrote:

> I read a class like this.what’s the description work for?
> 
> class Employee  
> Â description “xxxxxxxx”  
> Â #some code continue here  
> end

Well, it’s not part of ruby core/stdlib, but it seems to be an instance  
method  
of Module or Class (or maybe Object) that, judging by its name, stores  
the  
description of a class/module (or maybe object) and presumably allows  
you to  
acces this description from a documentationt or source code browser of  
some  
sort - or something like that.

HTH,  
Sebastian

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**Author:** ![rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubyernewbie)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/description-what-is-it/150753/3 "2008-10-12T20:04:59Z")

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On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Sebastian H.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Zhenning G. wrote:
> 
> > I read a class like this.what’s the description work for?

> Well, it’s not part of ruby core/stdlib

erm, uh, at [http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/](http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/) I find “description” listed  
as a method of Generators::HtmlMethod 🙂

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**Author:** ![rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@rubyernewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubyernewbie)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/description-what-is-it/150753/4 "2008-10-12T20:12:02Z")

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Hassan S. wrote:

> > Well, it’s not part of ruby core/stdlib
> 
> erm, uh, at [http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/](http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/) I find “description” listed  
> as a method of Generators::HtmlMethod 🙂

Yeah, but that’s not the one used in his code snippet.