Ruby self.name or @name

Question

I have a question about what the best way is to reference a class variable in Ruby.

Here is a class I made:

class Person
  attr_accessor :name

  def initialize(name)
    @name = name
  end

  def say_name
    puts @name
  end

  def say_name2
    puts self.name
  end

end

bob = Person.new("Bob")

bob.say_name 
=> "Bob"

bob.say_name2
=> "Bob"

Both of the "say_name" methods seems to work as intended. Why use the @variable vs the self.variable??

You don't even need the `self.` in your second method, unless you're assigning, it can just be `name`... — Brad Werth, Jun 06 '17 at 00:04

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 06 '17 at 02:45

3

attr_accessor :name just creates method name, which returns @name variable, something like

def name
  @name
end

instead of you.

Without attr_accessor both self.name and name will not work and return NoMethodError. @name will work in all cases.

edited Jun 06 '17 at 02:45

max pleaner

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answered Jun 06 '17 at 01:27

Ilya

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Ruby self.name or @name

1 Answers1