Data Types in Ruby language

Ruby has several data types and all data types are based on classes as it is a pure Object-Oriented language.

The following are the basic data types recognized in Ruby:

• Number (Class: Numeric)
  • Integer (Class: Integer)
  • Float (Class: Float)
• String (Class: String)
• Boolean (Class: TrueClass or FalseClass )
• Array (Class: Array)
• Hash (Class: Hash)
• Symbol (Class: Symbol)
• Range (Class: Range)
• Nil (Class: NilClass)

Try yourself

puts "I am string".class
puts 10.class
puts 14.3.class
puts true.class
puts false.class
puts ["I am string", 10, 14.3, true, false].class
puts({ num: 10, float: 14.3, bool: true}.class)
puts :foo.class
puts (1..10).class
puts nil.class

Numbers

A number is defined as a sequence of digits, and may contain dot(.) as a decimal mark. Optionally the user can use the underscore(_) as a separator to make number more readable. There are two different kinds of numbers i.e integer and float.

Basic Operations

We can perform many basic operations with numbers like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc.

# Integer
5 + 5 # evaluation: 10
20 - 10 # evaluation: 10
20 * 5 # evaluation: 100
20 / 5 # ovalua: 4

# Float
1.5 + 2.5 # evaluation: 4.0
5.5 - 2.5 # evaluation: 3.0
2.5 * 2 # evaluation: 5.0
10 / 2.5 # evaluation: 4.0

# Surprise!
15/2 # evaluation: 7
15.0/2 # evaluation: 7.5
15.fdiv(2) # evaluation: 7.5

NOTE: # is used to mark the beginning of a comment.

We will see more details about numbers in another section.

String

A string is a sequence of characters that may represent a word or a sentence. Strings are enclosed by a text within a single (') or double (") quotes. You can use both double quotes and single quotes to create strings. Strings are objects of the class String.

String Interpolation

It is the way to evaluate some Ruby code between the opening #{ and closing } bits and the result will be embedded into the string surrounding it.

# String concatenation
name = "Ruby"
puts "Hello, " + name   # output: Hello, Ruby

# String interpolation
name = "Ruby"
puts "Hello, #{name}"   # output: Hello, Ruby

Double vs Single quote string

• Double quoted string allow interpolation while single quote doesn’t

  name = "Ruby" # defined some value name
  puts "My name is #{name}" # output: My name is Ruby
  puts 'My name is #{name}' # output: My name is #{name}
  # Single quoted string didn't substituted value of 'name'
  

• Double quote strings allow escape sequences while single quote do not.

  puts "\n" # output: new line is shown
  puts '\n' # output: \n
  

Best Practice

As many of the Ruby Linters suggest, use single quote for defining a “simple” string and use double quote in the case of interpolation or escaping sequences. More importantly, be consistent in your choice.

Boolean

In Ruby there is no Boolean data type, but intead we have two different objects: false and true. true is an instance of TrueClass and false is an instance of FalseClass.

Instead, there is this “boolean” idea of truthy and falsy that is used, while we can also be strict with a true and false evaluation if we need to be.

AND, OR and NOT

• If we use and with any two operands and if both of them are true, then the result will be true. Otherwise, it will be false. and can be understood as both ( first and second both )`.
• If we use or and if at least one of the two operands is true, then the result will be true. The result will be false if both the operands are false. OR can be understood as either ( first or second any ).
• You can understand not by thinking that it will do the opposite. We can consider this “negation”. This can be understood as described below.
  • not false is true
  • not true is false

&&, || and !

In Ruby there are three main boolean operators:

• && which represents logical and. For an && to evaluate to true, both operand values must evaluate to true. For example:

puts true && true # output: true
puts true && false # output: false

• || which represents logical or. For an || to evaluate to true, only one operand value must evaluate to true. For example:

puts false || true # output: true

• ! (pronounced as “not”) which represents logical not. A ! (“not”) reverses the logical state of its operand, i.e., if a condition is true, then ! will make it false; if it is false, then ! will make it true. For example:

puts !true # output: false
puts !false # output: true

More Example

x = 10
y = 20
puts x == 10 && y == 20
puts x == 3 || y == 20
puts x == 3 && y == 20
puts x == 3 || y == 2
puts !x # output: false as using ! operator to non-zero result to false

Output:

true
true
false
false
false

Best Practice

Use &&/|| for boolean expressions, and/or for flow control. (source)

See The Pickaxe for more information about “operators” (often methods) in Ruby, and their precedence.

# boolean expression
if codition1 && condition2
  do_something
end

# control flow
document.saved? or document.save!

Array

Ruby arrays are ordered (indexed) collections of objects. They can hold objects like integer, number, hash, string, symbol or any other array.

An array is a list of values enclosed in square brackets its elements are separated by commas.

Each element in an array is referred to by an index which starts at 0 like in C. A negative index is assumed to be relative to the end of the array, i.e., -1 indicates the last element of the array, -2 is the 2nd last element and so on.

Creating Arrays

The two common ways to create arrays are:

• Using square brackets

fruits = ['mango', 'banana', 'apple'] # evaluates as: fruits array with three fruit names

• Using Array.new

numbers = Array.new(3, 0) # evaluates as: numbers array with 3 elements initialized to 0
puts numbers # [0, 0, 0]

languages = Array.new(5, 'ruby')
puts languages # ['ruby', 'ruby', 'ruby', 'ruby', 'ruby]

This approach is quite useful in creating an array with some predetermined values.

Accessing element in Array

You can access an array’s element by using its index value.

fruits = ['mango', 'banana', 'apple']
puts fruits[0] # output: 'mango'

Removing an element from an Array

The common way to delete an element from an Array is using the delete method.

languages = ['C', 'Ruby', 'Python', 'Go', 'C']
languages.delete('C')
puts languages # ['Ruby', 'Python', 'Go']

NOTE: It will remove all occurrences of the specified element.

See Array page for more detail.

Hash

A Hash is a collection of key-value pairs data. These key-value pairs provide a useful way to store and access data. Hashes are often used to hold data that are related.

You define a hash like:

# Similar to the Perl Hash, unsurprisingly
user = { "first_name" => "Foo", "last_name" => "Bar" }
# or similar to JSON (without the string requirement for the keys)
user = { first_name: "Foo", last_name: "Bar" }

Accessing element from Hash

You can retrieve values from a Hash using [] method requesting a key inside it.

user = { first_name: "Foo", last_name: "Bar" }
puts user[:first_name] # output: Foo

See Hash page for more detail.

Symbol

Symbol is similar to String but symbols are immutable, i.e., it’s state can’t be changed once created. It will always have the same size in memory. Its value is its identity.

Better for performance

When you create two String objects with the same value, those two objects two different objects. However, when you create two Symbols, it is the same object. See below results.

# string
>> "foo".object_id
=> 70288511587360
>> "foo".object_id
=> 70288504327720

# symbol
>> :foo.object_id
=> 2098908
>> :philip.object_id
=> 2104348
>> :foo.object_id
=> 2098908

Best practice

Use symbol to identify something since it refers to only one object. This is why keys are often symbols in a Hash.

Range

Ruby ranges describes a set of values with an indicated beginning and end. Values of a range can be numbers, characters, strings or objects. It provides the flexibility and can reduce the size of code.

A common use is to define a range of values for array.

There are two basic forms:

• Using start..end(two dots): Include the end value as part of object
• Using start...end(three dots): Exclude the end value as part of object

(1..10).to_a    # evaluation: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
(1...10).to_a   # evaluation: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
('a'..'e').to_a # evaluation: ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]

Nil

nil is a Ruby object used to represent “nothing”. It’s the only other object that will evaluate as “false” in a conditional statement by itself, the other being false. We call this “falsey”, since it is not literally false, yet it evaluates as such a value, meaning that it behaves like false, and it ecan be used as a conditional statement for this purpose. nil is the single object of NilClass.

NOTE: There is ONLY one nil object, with an object_id of 8 on a 64-bit machine, an object_id of 4 on a 32-bit machine or operating system..