I don't understand the difference between struct and class equality check. Since both Struct and Class gets their #hash from Kernel but they seem to behave differently.
I know that instance.hash will produce a different result for each class instance. Struct instance has different ancestors [Customer, Struct, Enumerable, Object, Kernel, BasicObject] compare to Class instance [Foo, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]. What really caused each Class instance to have a different hash number to othe
Customer = Struct.new(:name, :phone, :address) do
end
class Foo
def initialize(the_name, phone, address)
@name = the_name
@phone = phone
@address = address
end
end
str_a = Customer.new('bond', 'ring', 'address')
str_b = Customer.new('bond', 'ring', 'address')
foo_a = Foo.new('bond', 'ring', 'address')
foo_b = Foo.new('bond', 'ring', 'address')
p str_a == str_b #true
p foo_a == foo_b #false
p str_a.hash # 4473040617195177332
p str_b.hash # 4473040617195177332
p foo_a.hash # -3118151143418428190
p foo_b.hash # -1042397847400824657
p str_a.method(:hash).owner #Kernel
p foo_a.method(:hash).owner #Kernel
both Struct and Class use Kernel for its hash_number generation. Why do a different instance of Class produce different hash int but Struct instance would produce the same hash int?
I believe the answer you're looking for is found in the Struct documentation
Equality—Returns true if other has the same struct subclass
and has equal member values (according to Object#==).
Your example has equal member values for str_a
and str_b
, and they have the same subclass (Customer
), so they are equal when compared with ==
Contrast this with the Object documentation
Equality — At the Object level, == returns true only if
obj and other are the same object. Typically, this method is
overridden in descendant classes to provide class-specific meaning.
In your example, foo_a
and foo_b
are not the same object (because they're not the same instance)
If you're seeking why these are different, I didn't really answer that question. Just that the behavior is as intended per the docs. They don't actually have the same ID:
pry >> Bar = Struct.new(:name) do; end
=> Bar < Struct
pry >> x = Bar.new
=> #<Struct:Bar:0x7f8ebca47610
name = nil
pry >> y = Bar.new
=> #<Struct:Bar:0x7f8ebca14058
name = nil
pry >> x.name = "foo"
=> "foo"
pry >> y.name = "foo"
=> "foo"
pry >> x
=> #<Struct:Bar:0x7f8ebca47610
name = "foo"
pry >> y
=> #<Struct:Bar:0x7f8ebca14058
name = "foo"
But, you'll note comparison is based on attributes, rather than the object ID:
pry >> x == y
=> true
Even though the object id's are different:
pry >> x.__id__
=> 70125513489160
pry >> y.__id__
=> 70125513383980