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Declaring types for non-methods

Sorbet provides the most value when it has a wealth of programmer-supplied static types.

However, because Sorbet implements a gradual type system, it treats most definitions without explicit annotations as untyped. This means that Sorbet can only use static types for methods, constants, instance variables, and class variables if they are accompanied with explicit static types.

For more information on why type annotations are required in Sorbet, see Why does Sorbet sometimes need type annotations?.

Type annotations for methods are provided using a sig before the method definition. Method type annotations are described in great detail on the Method Signatures.

Other type annotations are provided using the T.let type assertion.

Annotating local variables

Sorbet does not usually need type annotations for local variables, as it can infer the type of the local variable based on how it is initialized. For example, in the following program, Sorbet can tell x is an Integer based on the fact that it is initialized with an expression that evaluates to an Integer:

x = 2 + 3

You may still provide a wider type annotation if you would like. This can occasionally be helpful if you want the type of a variable to be broader than Sorbet’s inferred type, such as in situations where you are changing the value of a variable in a loop to something that is broader than the expression that you use to initialize the variable:

# without this T.let, x would have the inferred type NilClass
x = T.let(nil, T.nilable(Integer))
(0..10).each do |n|
  x = n if n % 3 == 0
end

Annotating constants

Sorbet does not, by default, infer the types of constants, but they can be specified using T.let:

NAMES = T.let(["Nelson", "Dmitry", "Paul"], T::Array[String])

Declaring class and instance variables

To declare the static type of an instance variable, we can use T.let in a class’s constructor:

class MyObj
  def initialize
    @foo = T.let(0, Integer)
  end
end

We can also declare class variables and instance variables on a singleton class using T.let at the top-level of a class:

class HasVariables
  # Class variable
  @@llamas = T.let([], T::Array[Llama])

  # Instance variable on the singleton class
  @alpaca_count = T.let(0, Integer)
end

Sorbet requires that instance and class variables are defined in these specific places to guarantee that they’re initialized. But sometimes requiring that these variables be declared in specific places is too restrictive. Sorbet allows an instance variable to be declared anywhere so long as the type is at least nilable:

class A
  def foo
    # Does NOT have to be declared in `initialize`, because it's nilable:
    @x = T.let(0, T.nilable(Integer))
  end

  def self.bar
    # Also works for `self.` methods:
    @y = T.let('', T.nilable(String))
  end
end

Declaring lazily-initialized instance variables

Sorbet also supports T.let type annotations for instance variables that are lazily initialized with ||=, just like those initialized eagerly with =. The syntax looks just the same:

module B
  sig {returns(String)}
  def current_user
    @user ||= T.let(ENV.fetch('USER'), T.nilable(String))
  end
end

Note that the same restrictions about the variable being declared T.nilable apply, but that Sorbet’s control flow-sensitive typing is smart enough to understand that either:

1. @user has already been initialized to a non-nil value, so the || condition is truthy and thus must return a String, or
2. @user has not yet been initialized, but the initial value, computed using ENV.fetch('USER'), has type String (and is thus non-nil).

Limitations on instance variable inference

A current shortcoming of Sorbet is that in many cases it cannot reuse static type knowledge in order to automatically determine the type of an instance or class variable. In the following example, Sorbet will naturally understand that @x is of type Integer, but it cannot determine the static type of @y without a T.let and therefore treats it as T.untyped:

class Foo
  sig {params(x: Integer, y: Integer).void}
  def initialize(x, y)
    @x = x
    @y = y + 0

    T.reveal_type(@x)  # Integer
    T.reveal_type(@y)  # T.untyped
  end
end

Sorbet can only infer the types of instance variables in a relatively specific context: in particular, only when that instance variable is initialized to the exact value of a parameter to the constructor in the body of the constructor. In other cases, you will need to use T.let to explicitly give the types of instance variables.

Note: This particular limitation is because of how Sorbet performs typechecking: it needs to know the types of instance variables before it typechecks method definitions, but even a simple expression like y + 0 will require a typechecking pass to determine what its resulting type is, which means Sorbet won’t be able to tell what type to infer for an instance variable until after it has already started typechecking the method where instance variables are defined. Sorbet resolves this cyclical dependency by either using types that you have explicitly defined with T.let, or by relying on simple code patterns like the one described above.