Instance Variables

suggest change

Instance variables have an object wide scope, they can be declared anywhere in the object, however an instance variable declared on class level, will only be visible in the class object. A variable will be considered an instance variable when prefixed with @. Instance variables are used to set and get an objects attributes and will return nil if not defined.

class Dinosaur
    @base_sound = "rawrr"

    def initialize(sound = nil)
        @sound = sound || self.class.base_sound
    end

    def speak
        @sound
    end

    def try_to_speak
        @base_sound
    end

    def count_and_store_sound_length
        @sound.chars.each_with_index do |char, i|
            @sound_length = i + 1
            p "#{char}: #{sound_length}"
        end
    end
    
    def sound_length
        @sound_length
    end

    def self.base_sound
        @base_sound
    end
end

dino_1 = Dinosaur.new
dino_2 = Dinosaur.new "grrr"

Dinosaur.base_sound
# => "rawrr"
dino_2.speak
# => "grrr"

The instance variable declared on class level can not be accessed on object level:

dino_1.try_to_speak
# => nil

However, we used the instance variable @base_sound to instantiate the sound when no sound is passed to the new method:

dino_1.speak
# => "rawwr"

Instance variables can be declared anywhere in the object, even inside a block:

dino_1.count_and_store_sound_length
# "r: 1"
# "a: 2"
# "w: 3"
# "r: 4"
# "r: 5"
# => ["r", "a", "w", "r", "r"]

dino_1.sound_length
# => 5

Instance variables are not shared between instances of the same class

dino_2.sound_length
# => nil

This can be used to create class level variables, that will not be overwritten by a child-class, since classes are also objects in Ruby.

class DuckDuckDinosaur < Dinosaur
    @base_sound = "quack quack"
end

duck_dino = DuckDuckDinosaur.new
duck_dino.speak
# => "quack quack"
DuckDuckDinosaur.base_sound
# => "quack quack"
Dinosaur.base_sound
# => "rawrr"

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

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