Class Object
In: object.c
Parent: BasicObject

BasicObject is the parent class of all classes in Ruby. It‘s an explicit blank class. Object, the root of Ruby‘s class hierarchy is a direct subclass of BasicObject. Its methods are therefore available to all objects unless explicitly overridden.

Object mixes in the Kernel module, making the built-in kernel functions globally accessible. Although the instance methods of Object are defined by the Kernel module, we have chosen to document them here for clarity.

In the descriptions of Object‘s methods, the parameter symbol refers to a symbol, which is either a quoted string or a Symbol (such as :name).

Methods

Included Modules

Kernel

Constants

NIL = Qnil
TRUE = Qtrue
FALSE = Qfalse

Public Instance methods

Returns true if two objects do not match (using the =~ method), otherwise false.

Case Equality—For class Object, effectively the same as calling #==, but typically overridden by descendents to provide meaningful semantics in case statements.

Pattern Match—Overridden by descendents (notably Regexp and String) to provide meaningful pattern-match semantics.

Returns the class of obj, now preferred over Object#type, as an object‘s type in Ruby is only loosely tied to that object‘s class. This method must always be called with an explicit receiver, as class is also a reserved word in Ruby.

   1.class      #=> Fixnum
   self.class   #=> Object

Produces a shallow copy of obj—the instance variables of obj are copied, but not the objects they reference. Copies the frozen and tainted state of obj. See also the discussion under Object#dup.

   class Klass
      attr_accessor :str
   end
   s1 = Klass.new      #=> #<Klass:0x401b3a38>
   s1.str = "Hello"    #=> "Hello"
   s2 = s1.clone       #=> #<Klass:0x401b3998 @str="Hello">
   s2.str[1,4] = "i"   #=> "i"
   s1.inspect          #=> "#<Klass:0x401b3a38 @str=\"Hi\">"
   s2.inspect          #=> "#<Klass:0x401b3998 @str=\"Hi\">"

This method may have class-specific behavior. If so, that behavior will be documented under the #initialize_copy method of the class.

Produces a shallow copy of obj—the instance variables of obj are copied, but not the objects they reference. dup copies the tainted state of obj. See also the discussion under Object#clone. In general, clone and dup may have different semantics in descendent classes. While clone is used to duplicate an object, including its internal state, dup typically uses the class of the descendent object to create the new instance.

This method may have class-specific behavior. If so, that behavior will be documented under the #initialize_copy method of the class.

Equality—At the Object level, == returns true only if obj and other are the same object. Typically, this method is overridden in descendent classes to provide class-specific meaning.

Unlike ==, the equal? method should never be overridden by subclasses: it is used to determine object identity (that is, a.equal?(b) iff a is the same object as b).

The eql? method returns true if obj and anObject have the same value. Used by Hash to test members for equality. For objects of class Object, eql? is synonymous with ==. Subclasses normally continue this tradition, but there are exceptions. Numeric types, for example, perform type conversion across ==, but not across eql?, so:

   1 == 1.0     #=> true
   1.eql? 1.0   #=> false

Prevents further modifications to obj. A RuntimeError will be raised if modification is attempted. There is no way to unfreeze a frozen object. See also Object#frozen?.

This method returns self.

   a = [ "a", "b", "c" ]
   a.freeze
   a << "z"

produces:

   prog.rb:3:in `<<': can't modify frozen array (RuntimeError)
    from prog.rb:3

Returns the freeze status of obj.

   a = [ "a", "b", "c" ]
   a.freeze    #=> ["a", "b", "c"]
   a.frozen?   #=> true

Returns a string containing a human-readable representation of obj. If not overridden, uses the to_s method to generate the string.

   [ 1, 2, 3..4, 'five' ].inspect   #=> "[1, 2, 3..4, \"five\"]"
   Time.new.inspect                 #=> "2008-03-08 19:43:39 +0900"

Returns true if obj is an instance of the given class. See also Object#kind_of?.

Returns true if the given instance variable is defined in obj.

   class Fred
     def initialize(p1, p2)
       @a, @b = p1, p2
     end
   end
   fred = Fred.new('cat', 99)
   fred.instance_variable_defined?(:@a)    #=> true
   fred.instance_variable_defined?("@b")   #=> true
   fred.instance_variable_defined?("@c")   #=> false

Returns the value of the given instance variable, or nil if the instance variable is not set. The @ part of the variable name should be included for regular instance variables. Throws a NameError exception if the supplied symbol is not valid as an instance variable name.

   class Fred
     def initialize(p1, p2)
       @a, @b = p1, p2
     end
   end
   fred = Fred.new('cat', 99)
   fred.instance_variable_get(:@a)    #=> "cat"
   fred.instance_variable_get("@b")   #=> 99

Sets the instance variable names by symbol to object, thereby frustrating the efforts of the class‘s author to attempt to provide proper encapsulation. The variable did not have to exist prior to this call.

   class Fred
     def initialize(p1, p2)
       @a, @b = p1, p2
     end
   end
   fred = Fred.new('cat', 99)
   fred.instance_variable_set(:@a, 'dog')   #=> "dog"
   fred.instance_variable_set(:@c, 'cat')   #=> "cat"
   fred.inspect                             #=> "#<Fred:0x401b3da8 @a=\"dog\", @b=99, @c=\"cat\">"

Returns an array of instance variable names for the receiver. Note that simply defining an accessor does not create the corresponding instance variable.

   class Fred
     attr_accessor :a1
     def initialize
       @iv = 3
     end
   end
   Fred.new.instance_variables   #=> [:@iv]

Returns true if class is the class of obj, or if class is one of the superclasses of obj or modules included in obj.

   module M;    end
   class A
     include M
   end
   class B < A; end
   class C < B; end
   b = B.new
   b.instance_of? A   #=> false
   b.instance_of? B   #=> true
   b.instance_of? C   #=> false
   b.instance_of? M   #=> false
   b.kind_of? A       #=> true
   b.kind_of? B       #=> true
   b.kind_of? C       #=> false
   b.kind_of? M       #=> true

Returns true if class is the class of obj, or if class is one of the superclasses of obj or modules included in obj.

   module M;    end
   class A
     include M
   end
   class B < A; end
   class C < B; end
   b = B.new
   b.instance_of? A   #=> false
   b.instance_of? B   #=> true
   b.instance_of? C   #=> false
   b.instance_of? M   #=> false
   b.kind_of? A       #=> true
   b.kind_of? B       #=> true
   b.kind_of? C       #=> false
   b.kind_of? M       #=> true

Returns a list of the names of methods publicly accessible in obj. This will include all the methods accessible in obj‘s ancestors.

   class Klass
     def kMethod()
     end
   end
   k = Klass.new
   k.methods[0..9]    #=> ["kMethod", "freeze", "nil?", "is_a?",
                      #    "class", "instance_variable_set",
                      #    "methods", "extend", "__send__", "instance_eval"]
   k.methods.length   #=> 42

call_seq:

  nil.nil?               => true
  <anything_else>.nil?   => false

Only the object nil responds true to nil?.

Returns the list of private methods accessible to obj. If the all parameter is set to false, only those methods in the receiver will be listed.

Returns the list of protected methods accessible to obj. If the all parameter is set to false, only those methods in the receiver will be listed.

Returns the list of public methods accessible to obj. If the all parameter is set to false, only those methods in the receiver will be listed.

Removes the named instance variable from obj, returning that variable‘s value.

   class Dummy
     attr_reader :var
     def initialize
       @var = 99
     end
     def remove
       remove_instance_variable(:@var)
     end
   end
   d = Dummy.new
   d.var      #=> 99
   d.remove   #=> 99
   d.var      #=> nil

Returns an array of the names of singleton methods for obj. If the optional all parameter is true, the list will include methods in modules included in obj.

   module Other
     def three() end
   end

   class Single
     def Single.four() end
   end

   a = Single.new

   def a.one()
   end

   class << a
     include Other
     def two()
     end
   end

   Single.singleton_methods    #=> [:four]
   a.singleton_methods(false)  #=> [:two, :one]
   a.singleton_methods         #=> [:two, :one, :three]

Marks obj as tainted—if the $SAFE level is set appropriately, many method calls which might alter the running programs environment will refuse to accept tainted strings.

Returns true if the object is tainted.

Yields x to the block, and then returns x. The primary purpose of this method is to "tap into" a method chain, in order to perform operations on intermediate results within the chain.

    (1..10)                .tap {|x| puts "original: #{x.inspect}"}
      .to_a                .tap {|x| puts "array: #{x.inspect}"}
      .select {|x| x%2==0} .tap {|x| puts "evens: #{x.inspect}"}
      .map { |x| x*x }     .tap {|x| puts "squares: #{x.inspect}"}

Returns a string representing obj. The default to_s prints the object‘s class and an encoding of the object id. As a special case, the top-level object that is the initial execution context of Ruby programs returns ``main.’‘

Removes the untrusted mark from obj.

Removes the taint from obj.

Marks obj as untrusted.

Returns true if the object is untrusted.

[Validate]