Question

I am new to Ruby.

Can someone explain to me what the difference is between the characters preceding methods listed for a class in Ruby’s documentation?

Here’s an example: For the String class, the characters :: before ::new and ::try_convert versus the # before methods like #chomp, etc.

Answer 1

It specifies the “level” of methods. :: for class-level methods, # for instance-level methods.

For example, when you see String::new, you know you have to call it on a String class directly

s = String.new # silly example, because nobody does that.

But when you see String#gsub, you understand that you need an instance of String to call this method

String.gsub # uh-oh, won't work

s = "I like coffee"
s.gsub('coffee', 'tea') # => "I like tea"