What is Ruby's double-colon `::`?

ruby syntax operators
Meltemi picture Meltemi · Jun 9, 2010 · Viewed 113.7k times · Source

What is this double-colon ::? E.g. Foo::Bar.

I found a definition:

The :: is a unary operator that allows: constants, instance methods and class methods defined within a class or module, to be accessed from anywhere outside the class or module.

What good is scope (private, protected) if you can just use :: to expose anything?

Answer

mipadi picture mipadi · Jun 9, 2010

:: is basically a namespace resolution operator. It allows you to access items in modules, or class-level items in classes. For example, say you had this setup:

module SomeModule
    module InnerModule
        class MyClass
            CONSTANT = 4
        end
    end
end

You could access CONSTANT from outside the module as SomeModule::InnerModule::MyClass::CONSTANT.

It doesn't affect instance methods defined on a class, since you access those with a different syntax (the dot .).

Relevant note: If you want to go back to the top-level namespace, do this: ::SomeModule – Benjamin Oakes

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