How to find out object type

ruby-talk
1

Hello,

I am curious, is there a way to find out an object type?

TIA,
Phy

···

____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.
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2

object.kind_of?( Array ) #=> To test if it is something
object.is_a?( Array ) #=> Same

object.class #=> Tells you what class the object thinks it is.

···

On 2/20/07, Phy Prabab <phyprabab@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello,

I am curious, is there a way to find out an object type?

TIA,
Phy

____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.
http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html

3

You can find out what class gave 'birth' to the object via #class:

[1,2].class # Array
3.class # Fixnum

Note that #class does *not* return a string (e.g., "Array") but instead
returns a reference to the actual class object:

a = [1,2].class.new # allocates a brand new array
p a #

It is important to realize that the 'class' of an object is really just
a hint at how an object will respond to methods. It might be a really
good hint, but a hint nevertheless since objects are free to override
method definitions provided by the class or even to add methods that
the class doesn't provide:

b = [10,20,30]
def b.penultimate
   self[-2]
end
b.penultimate # 20

Gary Wright

···

On Feb 19, 2007, at 11:38 PM, Phy Prabab wrote:

I am curious, is there a way to find out an object type?