Class Instance Variable

When you learn about objects, you usually learn that they can capture two kinds of data: instance and class. Instance variables are the most common case, the data varies with each instance of the object. Class variables, often referred to as static variables, are shared across all instances of a class. Every instance points to same value and any changes are seen by all. Class variables are much less common than instance variables, especially mutable class variables.

A particular wrinkle with class variables is how they interact with inheritance. Consider a class variable that's used to store instances of itself. (If the ruby is unfamiliar see my reading guide.)

#ruby
class Employee
  @@instances = []
  def self.instances
    return @@instances
  end
  def store
    @@instances << self
  end
  def initialize name
    @name = name
  end
end

Employee.new('Martin').store
Employee.new('Roy').store
Employee.new('Erik').store

puts Employee.instances.size

No suprise here, there are three employees. But now try this.

#ruby
class Employee
  @@instances = []
  def self.instances
    @@instances
  end
  def store
    @@instances << self
  end
  def initialize name
    @name = name
  end
end

class Programmer < Employee; end
class Overhead < Employee; end

Overhead.new('Martin').store
Overhead.new('Roy').store
Programmer.new('Erik').store

puts Overhead.instances.size
puts Programmer.instances.size

The output here is 3 and 3, while we'd probably prefer 2 and 1. The reason is that a class variable is shared across all instances of a class, which includes all subclasses. There are two classes but only one variable.

Sometimes this variable across a hierarchy is exactly what we want, but sometimes, as in this case, we'd prefer a different variable for each class. I first came across this concept in some later versions of Smalltalk under the name of class instance variable. You could refer to a class instance variable the same way as with a class variable, but you got a different value per class.

Support for class instance variables isn't common in OO languages, but it's not too hard to it yourself. The obvious way is to use a dictionary keyed by class name.

#ruby
class Employee
  @@instances = {}
  def self.instances
    @@instances[self]
  end
  def store
    @@instances[self.class] ||= []
    @@instances[self.class] << self
  end
  def initialize name
    @name = name
  end
end

class Overhead < Employee; end
class Programmer < Employee; end

Overhead.new('Martin').store
Overhead.new('Roy').store
Programmer.new('Erik').store
puts Overhead.instances.size
puts Programmer.instances.size

You can use this technique in any OO language. Ruby, however, actually has class instance variables.

#ruby
class Employee
  class << self; attr_accessor :instances; end
  def store
    self.class.instances ||= []
    self.class.instances << self
  end
  def initialize name
    @name = name
  end
end

class Overhead < Employee; end
class Programmer < Employee; end

Overhead.new('Martin').store
Overhead.new('Roy').store
Programmer.new('Erik').store
puts Overhead.instances.size
puts Programmer.instances.size

The definition of the class instance variable is the fragment class << self; attr_accessor :instances; end. For reasons that I don't really want to go into, this defines an instance variable (and getters and setters) on the class employee that's inherited by its descendents. Unlike class variables these class instance variables will take different values for each class object.

Class instance variables are pretty rare, but useful when you do need them.