syntax - class() vs. type() in Ruby

Question

What's the difference between the class and type methods in Ruby? I've noticed that type works to find the type of some classes but not others.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/831380/class-vs-type-in-ruby

Answer 1

The key difference is that Object#type is deprecated. From the RDoc for Object#type:

Deprecated synonym for Object#class.

Here's why you should use Object#class:

Returns the class of obj, now preferred over Object#type, as an object‘s type in Ruby is only loosely tied to that object‘s class. This method must always be called with an explicit receiver, as class is also a reserved word in Ruby.

In reality, you probably want to use Object#respond_to? instead of checking for the class of an object in most cases.