# Trixy abbreviation

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trixy-abbreviation/53101>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 25, 2006, 9:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trixy-abbreviation/53101 "2006-01-25T09:44:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Andreas\_Farre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@Andreas\_Farre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Andreas_Farre)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trixy-abbreviation/53101/1 "2006-01-25T09:44:21Z")

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Hi all,

There’s a thing that’s been bugging me for quite some time now. If you  
read Programming Ruby’s section about the object model you will notice  
that modules are included by inserting proxy classes between the  
including  
class and its superclass; where the proxy class has an “iv\_tbl” pointer  
pointing to the module. This is implemented as a struct-based linked  
list  
in the interpreter, where the name “iv\_tbl” pops up again. So my  
question  
is: what does the abbreviation iv mean?

Cheers,  
Andreas

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**Author:** ![Andreas\_Farre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@Andreas\_Farre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Andreas_Farre)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 10:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trixy-abbreviation/53101/2 "2006-01-25T10:14:42Z")

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Andreas Farre wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> There’s a thing that’s been bugging me for quite some time now. If you  
> read Programming Ruby’s section about the object model you will notice  
> that modules are included by inserting proxy classes between the  
> including  
> class and its superclass; where the proxy class has an “iv\_tbl” pointer  
> pointing to the module. This is implemented as a struct-based linked  
> list  
> in the interpreter, where the name “iv\_tbl” pops up again. So my  
> question  
> is: what does the abbreviation iv mean?

My guess is iv\_tbl = “instance variable table”

– Jim W.