# Class

You may know what a class is, a "blueprint" for which an object is to be constructed from, but internally they are very simple (the source code contains detailed information of their implementation, [the class implementation](https://github.com/cheddar-lang/Cheddar/blob/master/src/interpreter/core/env/class.es6#L1) may provide additional details). A class has 3 main parts:

```
         Class
           |
  +--------+--------+
  |        |        |
scope    init()  instance
```

**A class *****is***** a scope**. An instance of a class is really just a scope. This may sound confusing but, think about what a scope *is*, it is a hashmap of variables which can inherit and provides interfacing for accessing it's variables. That sounds just like what a class is.

So what else? A class has an initializer, this is the main part seperating a class from a scope. Here are the steps taken during a class initalization:

1. **Create** an empty scope (this is called the "instance")
2. **Copy** the class's scope to the instance (and the inheriting class's if applicable).
3. **Run** the initializer (`init`) and pass the instance as "self".
4. **Return** the instance.

As you can see, the returned *instance*, is **just a regular scope**, but pre-populated. When executed, methods are passed the scope as a whole. Here's an example:

```javascript
class MyClass() {
  whatIsSelf => self
}

var A = MyClass{};
A.whatIsSelf();   // < Instance of "MyClass" >
```

as you can see, `whatIsSelf` is passed its scope (`A`) by the evaluator, but the scope is not directly attached to `whatIsSelf`.