Ruby Self

Objectives

1. Understand the concept of self-awareness in object-oriented programming.
2. Understand how the self keyword works.
3. Use self within an instance method to refer to the class instance on which that method is being called.

Introduction

When we create a class, each new instance of a class is considered to be an object. An object is a bundle of code that contains both characteristics and behaviors.

For example, if we create a Dog class like this:

class Dog

  attr_accessor :name

  def initialize(name)
    @name = name
  end
	
  def bark
    "Woof!"
  end

end

We could create a new instance of Dog like this:

fido = Dog.new("Fido")

We could then access Fido's name like this:

fido.name
  => "Fido"

or tell Fido to bark like this:

fido.bark
  => "Woof!"

Fido, the individual dog that we created, has a number of methods we can call on it that will reveal its attributes, like Fido's name, and enact certain behaviors, like barking.

If an object, like fido, is a neat package of attributes and behaviors, does an object know about itself? In other words, does each individual object we create have the ability to enact behaviors on itself, instead of in isolation, like our #bark method?

In fact, every object is aware of itself and we can define methods in which we tell objects to operate on themselves. We do so using the self keyword, inside the body of an instance method, to refer to the very same object the method is being called on.

This is where the analogy of our objects as being alive really resonates. Every object is, quite literally, self aware.

Using self

Try this:

Copy and paste the following code into IRB:

class Dog
  def showing_self
    puts self
  end
end

Now that we have our Dog class ready to go, copy and paste the following method invocations into IRB:

fido = Dog.new
fido.showing_self

The call to #showing_self should output:

#<Dog:0x007faf90a88cd8>

How does this work? Inside the #showing_self method we use the self keyword. The self keyword refers to the instance, or object, that the #showing_self method is being called on.

So, when we call #showing_self on fido, the method will puts out to the terminal the Dog instance that is fido.

Operating on self in an Instance Method

Let's say that Fido here is getting adopted. Fido's new owner is Sophie. Let's write an attr_accessor on our Dog for the owner attribute.

class Dog

  attr_accessor :name, :owner
	
  def initialize(name)
    @name = name
  end

end

Now we can set Fido's owner attribute equal to the string of "Sophie". The name of his new owner:

fido.owner = "Sophie"

fido.owner
  => "Sophie"

Great, Fido now knows the name of his owner. Let's think about the situation in which fido gets a new owner. This would occur at the moment in which fido is adopted.

To represent this with code, we could write an #adopted method like this:

def adopted(dog, owner_name)
  dog.owner = owner_name
end

Here we have a method that takes in two arguments, an instance of the Dog class and an owner's name. We could call our method like this:

adopted(fido, "Sophie")

# now we can ask Fido who his owner is:

fido.owner
  => "Sophie"

However, the beauty of object-oriented programming is that we can encapsulate, or wrap up, attributes and behaviors into one object. Instead of writing a method that is not associated to any particular object and that takes in certain objects as arguments, we can simply teach our Dog instances how to get adopted.

Let's refactor our code above into an instance method on the Dog class.

class Dog

  attr_accessor :name, :owner

  def initialize(name)
    @name = name
  end
	
  def bark
    "Woof!"
  end
	
  def get_adopted(owner_name)
    self.owner = owner_name
  end

end

Here, we use the self keyword inside of the #get_adopted instance method to refer to whichever dog this method is being called on. We set that dog's owner property equal to the new owner's name by calling the #owner= method on self inside the method body.

Think about it: if self refers to the object on which the method is being called, and if that object is an instance of the Dog class, then we can call any of our other instance methods on self.

Resources

• Metaprogramming in Ruby

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