Newbie here, having a hard time understanding Class methods and why I cannot get an attribute to show up correctly in the instance.
class Animal
attr_accessor :noise, :color, :legs, :arms
def self.create_with_attributes(noise, color)
animal = self.new(noise)
@noise = noise
@color = color
return animal
end
def initialize(noise, legs=4, arms=0)
@noise = noise
@legs = legs
@arms = arms
puts "----A new animal has been instantiated.----"
end
end
animal1 = Animal.new("Moo!", 4, 0)
puts animal1.noise
animal1.color = "black"
puts animal1.color
puts animal1.legs
puts animal1.arms
puts
animal2 = Animal.create_with_attributes("Quack", "white")
puts animal2.noise
puts animal2.color
When I use the class method create_with_attributes
(on animal.2), I expect "white"
to appear when I puts animal2.color
.
It seems as though I have defined it using attr_accessor
just like I have "noise", and yet noise appears correctly while color will not. I do not get an error when I run this program, but the .color attribute is just not appearing. I believe it is because I have somehow labeled it incorrectly in the code.
self.create_with_attributes
is a class method, so setting @noise
and @color
within it is not setting an instance variable, but instead what's known as a class instance variable.
What you want to do is set the variables on the instance you've just created, so instead, change self.create_with_attributes
to look something like:
def self.create_with_attributes(noise, color)
animal = self.new(noise)
animal.noise = noise
animal.color = color
animal
end
which will set the attributes on your new instance, instead of on the class itself.
When you're in the create_with_attributes
method, the instance variables are set on the Animal
class itself, not on the instance of Animal
you've just created. This is because the method is on the Animal
class (which is an instance of Class
), and thus it is run within that context, not the context of any instance of Animal
. If you do:
Animal.instance_variable_get(:@color)
after running the method like you describe, you should get "white"
back.
That said, you need to instead set the attributes on the instance you've just created by calling the setter methods like so:
def self.create_with_attributes(noise, color)
animal = self.new(noise)
animal.color = color
return animal
end
I removed the setting of noise
since it's done in your initialize
anyway.