This is an automatically generated page and cannot be edited directly. Text in Composite pages, (URLs starting with 'routine' or 'syntax') can be edited by clicking on the link labeled 'in context', and editing the text there.

Exit this popup by pressing <Escape>, or clicking on X or on the background.

type object
Combined from primary sources listed below.

In Classes and objects§

See primary documentation in context for A word on types.

Declaring a class creates a new type object which, by default, is installed into the current package (just like a variable declared with our scope). This type object is an "empty instance" of the class. For example, types such as Int and Str refer to the type object of one of the Raku built-in classes. One can call methods on these type objects. So there is nothing special with calling the new method on a type object.

You can use the .DEFINITE method to find out if what you have is an instance or a type object:

say Int.DEFINITE; # OUTPUT: «False␤» (type object)
say 426.DEFINITE; # OUTPUT: «True␤»  (instance)

class Foo {};
say Foo.DEFINITE;     # OUTPUT: «False␤» (type object)
say Foo.new.DEFINITE; # OUTPUT: «True␤»  (instance)

In function signatures one can use so called type "smileys" to only accept instances or type objects:

multi foo (Int:U) { "It's a type object!" }
multi foo (Int:D) { "It's an instance!"   }
say foo Int; # OUTPUT: «It's a type object!␤»
say foo 42;  # OUTPUT: «It's an instance!␤»