Ruby self in layman terms?

Question

When is Ruby self refering to the Object and when is self refering to the Ruby class? Explanations with examples would be great. Not getting my head around this.

Answer 1

My understanding is

• In environments where you are defining class methods or module_functions, self refers to the class/module.
• In environments where you are defining instance methods, self refers to the instance.

For example,

class A
  def method1
    self # => instance of A
  end
  def self.method2
    self # => class A
  endu
  def A.method3
    self # => class A
  end
end

class << A
  def method4
    self # => class A
  end
end

module B
  module_function
  def method5
    self # => module B
  end
end

Exceptions are that instance_eval, instance_exec alter self to the receiver.