From: Mark Woodward <markonlinux@...>
Date: 2006-02-02T06:52:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Class vs. Object

On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 01:43:40 -0500
James Herdman <james.herdman@gmail.com> wrote:

....
> I'm trying to grok the difference between a class and an object.  My 
> understanding of an object is that it is a thing, and that a class is 
> the description of said thing's behavior.  Is this correct?
....

Hi James,

A class is a 'blueprint' for objects(s). Just as you could use a blueprint of a house to build 10,100,1000 houses, so too you can use a class blueprint to create 10,100,1000 similar objects. So an object is an actual instance of a class.

# 1 class
class Person
  def initialize(name)
    @name =  name
  end
  def name
    @name
  end
end

# 2 objects (instances of the class)
fred = Person.new("wilma")
barney = Person.new("betty")

# use the objects
puts fred.name
puts barney.name


HTH,

--

Mark