12.6: Every Metaclass Is an Instance of Metaclass
- Page ID
- 36401
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Metaclasses are objects too; they are instances of the class Metaclass as shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\). The instances of class Metaclass are the anonymous metaclasses, each of which has exactly one instance, which is a class.
Metaclass represents common metaclass behaviour. It provides methods for instance creation (subclassOf:) creating initialized instances of the metaclass’s sole instance, initialization of class variables, metaclass instance, method compilation, and class information (inheritance links, instance variables, etc.).