Why cant there be classes inside methods in Ruby?

Question

Can I create Ruby classes within functions bodies ? I seem to be getting error which tells me its not allowed but I think it should be as classes are too objects here.

Answer 1

You can create classes from within methods and assign them to a constant, as in the following

class A
  def create_class class_name
    new_class = Class.new
    new_class.send :define_method, :speak do
      "Hi, There"
    end
    Object.const_set class_name, new_class
  end
end

A.new.create_class "Harry"
h = Harry.new
puts h.speak  # responds => "Hi, There"

because a class name as in String is just a constant in ruby unlike many other languages.