Variable access through self

Ruby
1

Hi,

I’ve seen a lot of examples in Rails code where they’re accessing what
appear
to be instance variables from self. Something like

self.foo = true

Now, I’m assuming that you can only access methods this way, so this is
actually a method call of

self.foo=(true)

Is that right? I’m not always clear on it.

Thanks,
Mike

2

On 10/31/06, Michael P. Soulier [email protected] wrote:

Is that right? I’m not always clear on it.
That is correct.

–
Regards,
John W.

3

On Nov 1, 2006, at 12:09 AM, John W. wrote:

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

  • Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

And you’re also apparently a bit confused about what’s really happening.

self.foo = true
becomes:
self.foo=(true)
which typically implies something like:

def foo=(foo)
@foo = foo
end

But you probably are more used to seeing something like:

attr_accessor :foo

which sets up the “def foo;@foo;end” and “def foo=(foo);@foo=foo;end”
for you.

-Rob

Rob B. http://agileconsultingllc.com
[email protected]