The initialize method is useful when we want to initialize some class variables at the time of object creation. The initialize method is part of the object-creation process in Ruby and it allows us to set the initial values for an object.
Below are some points about
Initialize :
- We can define default argument.
- It will always return a new object so return keyword is not used inside initialize method
- Defining initialize keyword is not necessary if our class doesn’t require any arguments.
- If we try to pass arguments into new and if we don’t define initialize we are going to get an error.
Syntax:
def initialize(argument1, argument2, .....)
Without Initialize variable -
Example :
Output :
=> :initialize
In above example, we add a method called
initialize to the class, method have a single argument
name. using
initialize method will initialize a object.
With Initialize Variable -
Example :
Output :
#<Rectangle:0x0000555e7b1ba0b0 @x=10, @y=20>
In above example, Initialize variable are accessed using the
@ operator within the class but to access them outside of the class we will use public methods.
