Access class property from instance?

Question

I am not sure is this is correct behaviour or if its unintended. I have setup StealthFighter so that it returns a class type computed property variable called ammunition.

func globalTests() {
    println("globalTests")
    println("AMMUNITION: \(StealthFighter.ammunition)")
    var myStealthFighter = StealthFighter()
    println("MISSILES: \(myStealthFighter.missiles)")
    println("AMMUNITION: \(myStealthFighter.ammunition)") // ERROR
}

class StealthFighter {
    class var ammunition:Int {
    return 500;
    }
    var missiles: Int = 5
}

When directly accessing the class StealthFighter this works fine and returns 500 as expected. But if I create and instance myStealthFighter and then try and access the class property on the instance I get the error: 'StealthFighter' does not have a member named 'ammunition' I can't find any mention of this, I am assuming from this that class properties are accessible only via the class? and not on any instances created from it? I just want to make sure I am understanding this correctly ...

EDIT:

So I have probably worded the type variable name wrong as it should probably be maxAmmunition to signify that StealthFighters can only take 500 rounds. I can see the point, if you want the maxAmmunition for the class then you ask the class.

As @Kreiri and @0x7fffffff points out it does seem that you can ask the instance what the class ammunition (or maxAmmunition) is by using dynamicType.

println("CLASS - AMMUNITION: \(StealthFighter.ammunition)")
var myStealthFighter = StealthFighter()
println("INSTA - AMMUNITION: \(myStealthFighter.dynamicType.ammunition)")

.

// OUTPUT
// CLASS - AMMUNITION: 500
// INSTA - AMMUNITION: 500

Answer 1

Your assumption is correct. Type variables are only meant to be accessed directly from the class. If you want to get at them from an instance, you can do so by accessing the dynamicType property on your instance, like so.

let theFighter = StealthFighter()
let missiles = theFighter.dynamicType.missiles
println(missiles)

However, I don't think that this is the correct approach for you to be taking here. Assuming that you want to have one class "StealthFighter", and possibly multiple instances of that class, each with the ability to have its own number of missiles independent of the others, you should probably make this an instance variable by simply ditching the class keyword.