From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-10-08T20:16:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Class Method determining it's actual class?

Art Gillespie <agillesp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> New to Ruby and to the list.  I've looked through pickaxe and through
> the ruby source code and haven't figured this one out.
>
> With the built-in File class, if I derive from it and call a class
> method (e.g., open) what I get back is an instance of my derived
> class:
>
> class IFFFile < File
> end
>
> f = IFFFile.open("media.iff", "r")
>
> f.class => "IFFFile"
>
> How does one do this with their own class methods?
>
> class A
>   def A.open
>     #how do we know here if the message recipient is a subclass of A?
>     #i.e., can't we generalize it so that it is, in effect, class.new?
>     A.new
>   end
> end
>
> Many thanks for any pointers to what I'm missing.

class A
  def self.open
    new
  end
end

class B < A
end

>> A.open.class
=> A
>> B.open.class
=> B

Note, the crucial bit is the method body.  def self.open and def A.open 
define the same method but using "self" makes refactoring (especially 
renaming of A) easier.  You could as well use class<<self:

class A
  class <<self
    def open
      new
    end
  end
end

Kind regards

    robert