class Reference
- Reference
- Object
Overview
Reference
is the base class of classes you define in your program.
It is set as a class' superclass when you don't specify one:
class MyClass # < Reference
end
A reference type is passed by reference: when you pass it to methods, return it from methods or assign it to variables, a pointer is actually passed.
Invoking new
on a Reference
allocates a new instance on the heap.
The instance's memory is automatically freed (garbage-collected) when
the instance is no longer referred by any other entity in the program.