Understanding namespaces in Ruby

Question

In the code below:

::Trace.tracer = ::Trace::ZipkinTracer.new()

what is the relation between Trace and ZipkinTracer?

Answer 1

ZipkinTracer is inside of Trace namespace, like this:

module Trace
  class ZipkinTracer
  # ...
  end
end

The :: before constant name means that you point to the root. For example in the following code:

class Class1
end

module Module1
  class Class1
  end

  def foo
    ::Class1
  end
end

::Class1 ensures that you refer to the "root" Class1. If you had:

def foo
  Class1
end

the Module1::Class1 would be referred.

Answer 2

This code does the following thing. First, it instantiates class ZipkinTracer:

new_instance = Trace::ZipkinTracer.new()

Then, it calls #tracer= method of the Trace module:

Trace.tracer=( new_instance )

Ruby syntax allows this to be rewritten as

Trace.tracer = new_instance

In this case, no assignment is happening, but a method ending in = is called. Methods ending in = are allowed in Ruby, used generally for attribute assignment, and they are special in that they always return the assigned value (that is, their argument), regardless of what other return value you might be trying to prescribe:

class Foo
  def bar=( value )
    puts "Method #bar= called!"
    @bar = value
    puts "Trying to return Quux!"
    return "Quux!"
  end

  def bar; @bar end
end

foo = Foo.new
foo.bar #=> nil
foo.bar = "Baz!"
#=> Method #bar= called!
#=> Trying to return Quux!
#=> "Baz!" -- attempt to explicitly return "Quux!" failed
foo.bar #=> "Baz!"