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rubyself

What does self mean in Ruby?

What does ruby self represent? what is it? what does it mean? Could some please explain it to me? in simple terms please And what is its function in a class?

class MyClass
   def method.self
   end
end
Solution

  • self refers to the object that is currently in context.

    In your example, self is the class itself and def self.method is defining a class method. For example:

    class MyClass
  def self.method
    puts "Hello!"
  end
end

> MyClass.method
#=> "Hello"

    You can also use self on instances of a class.

    class MyClass
  def method_a
    puts "Hello!"
  end

  def method_b
    self.method_a
  end
end 

> m = MyClass.new
> m.method_b
#=> "Hello!"

    In this case, self refers to the instance of MyClass.

    There is a good blog post on self in Ruby here, or, as it was pointed out in the comments, there is some more on this in the Ruby documentation.