From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-02-06T00:55:21+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:01239] Re: Singleton classes

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:01238] Re: Singleton classes"

|It's like we're subclassing the class of an object. How about
|'anonymous subclass'?

Hmm, I don't know which is better.  As non native English speaker, I
have no idea about the nuance of the word `singleton'.

Anyway, things done by `class <<obj' are like:

  * make virtual anonymous subclass of the object
  * define everything into the virtual anonymous class just like
    normal class definition.
  * make the virtual anonymous class as the class of object.
  * or, from other point of view, copy the newly defined attributes of
    the anonymous class as the singleton attributes of the object.

In the source, I called this `virtual anonymous class' as singleton
class.  That's why we had named it so.

|Wouldn't the object be a Proc object?

Yes, and is closure.  They are same thing in Ruby.

							matz.