Instance and class methods in Ruby on Rails

Question

Recently I saw a quite odd code in Ruby on Rails http://railscasts.com/episodes/206-action-mailer-in-rails-3

   class UserMailer < ActionMailer::Base
      default :from => "[email protected]"

      def registration_confirmation(user)
        @user = user
        attachments["rails.png"] = File.read("#{Rails.root}/public/images/rails.png")
        mail(:to => "#{user.name} <#{user.email}>", :subject => "Registered")
      end
    end

    #controller
    UserMailer.registration_confirmation(@user).deliver

How is it possible? registration_confirmation is not a class method ( or kind of like a static one in C#), it's an instance method!

Jason Malcolm · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-17 21:00:38Z

2

It's a little tricky.

Because it derives from AbstractController, the methods defined are added as public instance methods. (http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionMailer/Base.html)

You never instantiate your mailer class. Rather, you just call the method you defined on the class itself.

If you examine AbstractController::Base, you can see where the class is abstracted and the action methods are turned into public instance methods.

answered Aug 17, 2012 at 21:00

Jason Malcolm

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