A Quick Class Exploration

Generally, when we create a string, we do so with a string literal (we literally type the string as we want it to exist). This is sufficient to create an object that is an instance of the class String, which will respond to any of the build in string methods. We can see this in the pry snippet below:

[1] pry(main)> greeting = 'hello world'
=> "hello world"
[2] pry(main)> greeting.class
=> String
[3] pry(main)> greeting.upcase
=> "HELLO WORLD"

This is not the only way to create a string object. You can also create a string object by calling the method new on the string class itself:

[1] pry(main)> some_text = String.new
=> ""
[2] pry(main)> some_text.class
=> String
[3] pry(main)> some_text.upcase
=> ""
[4] pry(main)> greeting = String.new('hello world')
=> "hello world"
[5] pry(main)> greeting.class
=> String
[6] pry(main)> greeting.upcase
=> "HELLO WORLD"

String objects, as a ruby datatype, have this cool ability to be created both literally, and through the method new. When we create our own classes, we will create those class objects through the new method - our classes will not have the literal creation superpower :)

Now, back to defining our own methods…