T.attached_class

T.attached_class can be used to refer to the type of instances from a singleton-context, in a way that is friendly to inheritance.

class LoadableData
  extend T::Sig

  sig { params(id: Integer).returns(T.attached_class) }
  def self.load_by_id(id)
    new
  end
end

class Article < LoadableData; end
class User < LoadableData; end
class Administrator < User; end

T.reveal_type(Article.load_by_id(10)) # Article
T.reveal_type(User.load_by_id(15)) # User
T.reveal_type(Administrator.load_by_id(20)) # Administrator

Typing factory methods

Consider the following example of a class hierarchy with a factory method:

class Parent
  extend T::Sig

  # Correct, but not ideal return type
  sig { returns(Parent) }
  def self.make
    new
  end
end

class Child < Parent
  sig { void }
  def say_hi
    puts "hi"
  end
end

T.reveal_type(Parent.make) # Parent
T.reveal_type(Child.make) # Parent

Child.make.say_hi # Error: say_hi doesn't exist on Parent

Parent defines a single factory method self.make, which will create an instance of the Parent class. When this method is called off of the Parent class, it returns a new instance of type Parent. When it is called on Child it creates an instance of Child but the signature of Parent.make will cause the return value to be up-cast to Parent. This is fine if it’s convenient to use constructed Child values as though they were Parent, but becomes problematic if we need to call methods that are unique to Child instances, like in the case of Child.make.say_hi.

This is where T.attached_class comes in: changing the return type of Parent.make to T.attached_class indicates that it returns instances of the class the singleton method was called on. When called from Parent, it will return values of type Parent, and when called from Child it will return values of type Child. This resolves the type errors in the previous example with Child.make.say_hi,

class Parent
  extend T::Sig

  sig { returns(T.attached_class) }
  def self.make
    new
  end
end

class Child < Parent
  sig { void }
  def say_hi
    puts "hi"
  end
end

T.reveal_type(Parent.make) # Parent
T.reveal_type(Child.make) # Child

Child.make.say_hi # No error now, as Child.make has the type Child

`T.attached_class` as an argument?

Using T.attached_class as the type of parameters is an error in sorbet, and allowing it would cause soundness issues. To see why, let’s take a look at an example:

class Parent
  extend T::Sig

  sig { returns(T.attached_class) }
  def self.make
    new
  end

  sig { params(x: T.attached_class).void } # A bad type definition for `x`
  def self.consume(x)
    puts "consumed"
  end
end

class Child < Parent
  extend T::Sig

  sig { void }
  def say_hi
    puts "hi"
  end

  sig { params(x: T.attached_class).void } # A bad type definition for `x`
  def self.consume(x)
    x.say_hi
  end
end

Parent.consume(Parent.new)
Child.consume(Parent.new) # We would like this to be an error

Problems arise when you begin passing around singleton classes. Imagine that you write the method below, that accepts arguments of type T.class_of(Parent).

class A
  extend T::Sig

  sig { params(cls: T.class_of(Parent)).void }
  def self.consume_parent(cls)
    cls.consume(Parent.make)
  end
end

For the call to cls.consume in the body of A.consume_parent, we are always passing an argument whose type is Parent. Let’s walk through two different calls to A.consume_parent:

A.consume_parent(Parent)
- Parent has type T.class_of(Parent), and is acceptable for cls
- Parent.consume accepts values of type Parent (via T.attached_class)
A.consume_parent(Child)
- Child has type T.class_of(Child), which is a subtype of T.class_of(Parent) and is acceptable for cls
- Child.consume accepts arguments of type Child (via T.attached_class), and thus will raise an error when say_hi is called on the instance produced by Parent.make

As these two cases show, Sorbet can’t know whether the body of A.consume_parent type checks or not without knowledge about what type cls is at runtime. Because of this problem, T.attached_class is only allowed to show up in the returns part of a signature, and if it does show up in the params of a signature, you’ll get an error:

class Parent
  extend T::Sig

  sig { params(x: T.attached_class).void }
  #            ^: T.attached_class may only be used in an :out context, like returns
  def self.problem(x); end
end

As a final note: none of these problems would happen if consume were private:

The bad call to Child.consume(Parent.new) would not be allowed, because consume would be private.
The bad call to A.consume_parent(Child) would not be allowed because the body of consume_parent contains cls.consume, which is a non-private call to a private method.

As such, Sorbet allows T.attached_class to appear in input (:in) positions of private methods.

`T.attached_class` common problems

One common problem people encounter when using T.attached_class looks something like this:

# typed: true

class Parent
  extend T::Sig

  sig { returns(T.attached_class) }
  def self.make
    Parent.new # (1) Sorbet reports an error here
  end
end

class Child < Parent; end

T.reveal_type(Child.make) # Revealed type: `Child`

→ View on sorbet.run

In this example, the program attempts to return Parent.new from self.make, instead of just self.new. There is a key difference: Parent.new will always make an instance of Parent, while self.new will make an instance of the particular subclass that self.make was called on.

For this reason, Sorbet has to report an error at comment (1) above. If we consider the Child class that inherits from Parent, the T.attached_class type suggests to the caller that Child.make will return a Child instance (the T.reveal_type confirms this).

Since Parent.new is not an instance of Child or any other potential subclasses of Parent, Sorbet must reject the code at (1).

`has_attached_class!`: `T.attached_class` in module instance methods

Some modules are only ever eventually mixed into a class with extend (not include), meaning that any methods that module defines will eventually be called like singleton class methods.

These modules usually want to be able to call new to instantiate an instance of the class that the module is extend'd into. That’s a problem because normally constructor methods like that would have a return type of T.attached_class, but instance methods cannot mention T.attached_class.

To allow instance methods in such modules to use T.attached_class, Sorbet provides the has_attached_class!(:out) annotation:

module FinderMethods
  extend T::Sig
  extend T::Generic
  abstract!

  has_attached_class!(:out)

  sig { abstract.returns(T.attached_class) }
  def new; end

  sig { params(id: String).returns(T.attached_class) }
  def find(id)
    self.new
  end
end

class ParentModel
  extend T::Sig
  extend FinderMethods
end

class ChildModel < ParentModel
end

parent = ParentModel.find('pa_123')
T.reveal_type(parent) # => `ParentModel`
child = ChildModel.find('ch_123')
T.reveal_type(child)  # => `ChildModel`

Some things to note:

The has_attached_class! method is exposed as a method in T::Generic, because using has_attached_class! implicitly makes the module into a generic module. This is why modules are not allowed to use T.attached_class by default. It’s also why the :out is there: as a reminder that T.attached_class must obey the same rules as type_member(:out). More on this in a moment.
We’ve declared new as an abstract method. This method is automatically detected to be implemented when extend'd into a class (because all classes inherit a concrete self.new method).

This abstract new method allows calling new in the find method. If this find method had been in an RBI file (not in a source file), then the abstract new declaration would not have been required, because there would be no method bodies to type check.
The FinderMethods module is extended into ParentModel. Had this been include FinderMethods, Sorbet would have reported an error saying that FinderMethods can only be extended into classes.
The two calls to find at the bottom of the snippet reveal that find's type changes based on the type of the method call’s receiver. Basically: find on a ChildModel will be a ChildModel.

Generics and `has_attached_class!`

We mentioned above that using has_attached_class! in a module makes the module into a generic module. The mental model is to think of has_attached_class! as syntactic sugar for putting a type_member with an unmentionable name into the module. This type_member, having no explicit name, can then be referenced using T.attached_class.

What this means is that it’s possible to abstract over the attached class of an has_attached_class! module, the same as any other generic interface:

sig do
  type_parameters(:U)
    .params(
      findable: FinderMethods[T.type_parameter(:U)]
      id: String
    )
    .returns(T.type_parameter(:U))
end
def find_and_log(findable, id)
  instance = findable.find(id)
  puts("Found #{instance}")
  instance
end

parent = find_and_log(ParentModel, 'pa_123')
T.reveal_type(parent) # => `ParentModel`
child = find_and_log(ChildModel, 'pa_123')
T.reveal_type(child) # => `ChildModel`

Note how we’ve annotated the findable parameter as FinderMethods[...], indicating that we’re using the FinderMethods module generically. In fact, supplying a type argument to the FinderMethods is now required: it’s not possible to reference FinderMethods in a type position without providing a type annotation. If you truly must ignore this, supply a type argument like BasicObject or T.untyped (or accept the autocorrect on the error, which will insert T.untyped by default).

As a generic, has_attached_class! takes the same arguments that type_member takes for things like variance and bounds:

# Declares a covariant type member:
has_attached_class!(:out)

# Places a bound on the type member:
has_attached_class! { {upper: SomeInterface} }

# Altogether:
has_attached_class!(:out) { {upper: SomeInterface} }

(Note that this type member cannot be declared contravariant, as that would make it impossible to mix this module into a class.)

Note: you may also find this external blog post useful, which discusses similar topics:

Typing klass.new in Ruby with Sorbet →

Typing factory methods

T.attached_class as an argument?

T.attached_class common problems

has_attached_class!: T.attached_class in module instance methods

Generics and has_attached_class!

`T.attached_class` as an argument?

`T.attached_class` common problems

`has_attached_class!`: `T.attached_class` in module instance methods

Generics and `has_attached_class!`