From: "yermej@..." <yermej@...>
Date: 2007-06-29T13:25:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Double colon in class definition?

On Jun 28, 10:02 pm, Robert La Ferla <robertlafe...@comcast.net>
wrote:
> What does the double colon mean in a class definition.  e.g.
> ActiveRecord::Base ?  I couldn't locate it in the docs.   I suspect
> it's akin to a category or a namespace.  The only documentation on
> double-colon that I have found indicates that "::" is used to make
> class methods easier to read since "." will also call a class method.

In this case, it indicates that Base is a class within the
ActiveRecord module. More generally, it's used to reference a constant
(modules & classes are constants) within a module (similar to a
namespace) or a class. As in:

irb> Object::Fixnum.class
=> Class
irb> Object::RUBY_VERSION.class
=> String