CLASS METHOD

 Synopsis

         Declare class method(s)

 Syntax

         CLASS METHOD <method name list>

 Arguments

         <method name list> is a list of names of methods to be
         declared. The names are separated by commas. Each method declared
         should be defined later in the same module using the METHOD
         definition command.

 Description

         Declares one or more class methods, and corresponding messages
         with the same names.

         A class method applies to an entire class, rather than to a single
         instance of a class. Inside a class method, the self variable
         refers to the class object via which the method was invoked.
         Class variables are thus directly accessible inside class
         methods, by sending messages to self.

         See the section on Class Methods for more information.

 Notes

         If a message and its method cannot have the same name for some
         reason, the CLASS MESSAGE...METHOD command should be used
         instead.

         If a class uses class variables, it is often necessary to
         initialize them when that class is created. To assist with this,
         if a class defines a class method called initClass, the method
         will be invoked automatically when the class is first created.
         This allows one-time initialization of class variables. The
         initClass method should be declared as follows:

           CLASS METHOD initClass

         and defined after the class specification using the METHOD
         definition command. See the Class Initialization section
         for more information.

 See Also

         CLASS MESSAGE...METHOD, Class Messages, Class Methods,
         Class Variables, Class Initialization