Question

Ruby is fully object oriented language. In ruby, everything is an object & therefore, belongs to some class. for example 5 belongs to Object class

1.9.3p194 :001 > 5.class
 => Fixnum 
1.9.3p194 :002 > 5.class.superclass
 => Integer 
1.9.3p194 :003 > 5.class.superclass.superclass
 => Numeric 
1.9.3p194 :005 > 5.class.superclass.superclass.superclass
 => Object 
1.9.3p194 :006 > 5.class.superclass.superclass.superclass.superclass
 => BasicObject 
1.9.3p194 :007 > 5.class.superclass.superclass.superclass.superclass.superclass
 => nil 

so, we have to call all methods by prefixing class/object name as in Object_name#method_name. example:

5.times{|i| puts i}

now, rails has these so called helpers like stylesheet_link_tag, javascript_include_tag, form_for etc which do follow this Object_name#method_name syntax, so i guess they are just normal functions.

so my question is

1. What are these rails helpers?
2. If they just functions & do not
   inherit from any class. Doesn’t that contradict the claim made
   saying – in ruby, everything a object & there are no primitives.
   As the example, people cite 5.+(6) saying even operators are just
   plain methods?

Answer 1

• ActionView::Helpers
• ActionController::Helpers

For other things called without a receiver, look at the Kernel module, where stuff like puts is defined. Since the module is included in Object, its methods are available everywhere. How exactly would that contradict the — IMHO overused — claim that everything is an object?