Ruby - Operators

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Ruby supports a rich set of operators, as you'd expect from a modern language. Most operators are actually method calls. For example, a + b is interpreted as a.+(b), where the + method in the object referred to by variable a is called with b as its argument.

For each operator (+ - * / % ** & | ^ << >> && ||), there is a corresponding form of abbreviated assignment operator (+= -= etc.).

Ruby Arithmetic Operators

Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then −

Ruby Comparison Operators

Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then −

Ruby Assignment Operators

Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then −

Ruby Parallel Assignment

Ruby also supports the parallel assignment of variables. This enables multiple variables to be initialized with a single line of Ruby code. For example −

a = 10
b = 20
c = 30

This may be more quickly declared using parallel assignment −

a, b, c = 10, 20, 30

Parallel assignment is also useful for swapping the values held in two variables −

a, b = b, c

Ruby Bitwise Operators

Bitwise operator works on bits and performs bit by bit operation.

Assume if a = 60; and b = 13; now in binary format they will be as follows −

 a    =  0011 1100
 b    =  0000 1101
 ------------------
 a&b  =  0000 1100
 a|b  =  0011 1101
 a^b  =  0011 0001
 ~a   =  1100 0011

The following Bitwise operators are supported by Ruby language.

Ruby Logical Operators

The following logical operators are supported by Ruby language

Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then −

Ruby Ternary Operator

There is one more operator called Ternary Operator. It first evaluates an expression for a true or false value and then executes one of the two given statements depending upon the result of the evaluation. The conditional operator has this syntax −

Ruby Range Operators

Sequence ranges in Ruby are used to create a range of successive values - consisting of a start value, an end value, and a range of values in between.

In Ruby, these sequences are created using the ".." and "..." range operators. The two-dot form creates an inclusive range, while the three-dot form creates a range that excludes the specified high value.

Ruby defined? Operators

defined? is a special operator that takes the form of a method call to determine whether or not the passed expression is defined. It returns a description string of the expression, or nil if the expression isn't defined.

There are various usage of defined? Operator

Usage 1

defined? variable # True if variable is initialized

For Example

foo = 42
defined? foo    # => "local-variable"
defined? $_     # => "global-variable"
defined? bar    # => nil (undefined)

Usage 2

defined? method_call # True if a method is defined

For Example

defined? puts        # => "method"
defined? puts(bar)   # => nil (bar is not defined here)
defined? unpack      # => nil (not defined here)

Usage 3

# True if a method exists that can be called with super user
defined? super

For Example

defined? super     # => "super" (if it can be called)
defined? super     # => nil (if it cannot be)

Usage 4

defined? yield   # True if a code block has been passed

For Example

defined? yield    # => "yield" (if there is a block passed)
defined? yield    # => nil (if there is no block)

Ruby Dot "." and Double Colon "::" Operators

You call a module method by preceding its name with the module's name and a period, and you reference a constant using the module name and two colons.

The :: is a unary operator that allows: constants, instance methods and class methods defined within a class or module, to be accessed from anywhere outside the class or module.

Remember in Ruby, classes and methods may be considered constants too.

You need to just prefix the :: Const_name with an expression that returns the appropriate class or module object.

If no prefix expression is used, the main Object class is used by default.

Here are two examples −

MR_COUNT = 0         # constant defined on main Object class
module Foo
   MR_COUNT = 0
   ::MR_COUNT = 1    # set global count to 1
   MR_COUNT = 2      # set local count to 2
end
puts MR_COUNT        # this is the global constant
puts Foo::MR_COUNT   # this is the local "Foo" constant

Second Example

CONST = ' out there'
class Inside_one
   CONST = proc {' in there'}
   def where_is_my_CONST
      ::CONST + ' inside one'
   end
end
class Inside_two
   CONST = ' inside two'
   def where_is_my_CONST
      CONST
   end
end
puts Inside_one.new.where_is_my_CONST
puts Inside_two.new.where_is_my_CONST
puts Object::CONST + Inside_two::CONST
puts Inside_two::CONST + CONST
puts Inside_one::CONST
puts Inside_one::CONST.call + Inside_two::CONST

Ruby Operators Precedence

The following table lists all operators from highest precedence to lowest.

NOTE − Operators with a Yes in the method column are actually methods, and as such may be overridden.