[Help-smalltalk] Re: Objects and classes

[Paolo Bonzini]

> But you can define class side methods (often as convenient
> abbreviations) for creating new instances, which "hide" the call to new
> within their implementation, your fileIn above is one such example. 
> It's implementation might very well look like:
>
> fileIn: aPath
>         ^self new fileIn: aPath
>
> Just guessing, but it's a common pattern.

Yes, in this case it's another common usage of class methods, i.e. 
"create an object, do something, discard it".  fileIn: is implemented as


   ^(self open: aPath mode: self read)
        fileIn;
        close

(more or less).

Paolo