Test whether a Ruby class is a subclass of another class

I would like to test whether a class inherits from another class, but there doesn't seem to exist a method for that.

class A
end
class B < A
end
B.is_a? A
=> false
B.superclass == A
=> true

A trivial implementation of what I want would be:

class Class def is_subclass_of?(clazz) return true if superclass == clazz return false if self == Object superclass.is_subclass_of?(clazz) end
end

but I would expect this to exist already.

2 Answers

Just use the < operator

B < A # => true
A < A # => false

or use the <= operator

B <= A # => true
A <= A # => true

Also available:

B.ancestors.include? A

This differs slightly from the (shorter) answer of B < A because B is included in B.ancestors:

B.ancestors
#=> [B, A, Object, Kernel, BasicObject]
B < B
#=> false
B.ancestors.include? B
#=> true

Whether or not this is desirable depends on your use case.