Ruby 4.0 · Learn in your browser

Ruby Tutorial

Learn Ruby, one experiment at a time.

Write your first program, change it, and see what happens. Follow the lessons at your own pace — no installation needed.

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Your learning path

Running Ruby

Run Ruby and inspect values

Run a short Ruby program and choose how to display its values.

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Name and reuse values

Assign values to local variables and reuse those names in a program.

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Basic Data

Calculate with numbers

Use integer and floating-point arithmetic to calculate quantities.

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Build and transform text

Combine values into messages and apply simple string operations.

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Represent yes, no and absence

Read boolean results and distinguish false values from absent values.

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Use symbols as labels

Represent a named state with a symbol and compare it with other labels.

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Decisions and Loops

Choose with conditions

Choose an action by comparing values with if, elsif and case.

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Repeat with a condition

Repeat work with while and until, and control repetition with break and next.

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Working with Collections

Store an ordered list

Create an array, read entries by position and update a list.

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Look up values by key

Store named values in a hash and look them up with the matching key.

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Check a numeric interval

Describe numeric boundaries with ranges and test whether a value lies inside them.

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Methods and Blocks

Name reusable work

Define a method with arguments and use its returned value.

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Pass an action with a block

Attach a block to a method call and follow how yield runs it.

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Using Collections

Visit, transform and filter

Use each, map and select with blocks to process an array.

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Creating Objects

Create objects with classes

Initialize instance state and expose behavior through methods.

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Specialize a class with inheritance

Reuse a superclass and extend a method with super.

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Share behavior with modules

Share one set of instance methods across classes with include.

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Define an operator for your objects

Implement + as a method that combines two instances.

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Handling Errors

Handle an expected failure

Handle a specific exception and separate recovery from cleanup.

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Expressive Ruby

Match structured data

Select a branch using the shape and values of a Hash.

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Store behavior with procs and lambdas

Save a block as a callable object and pass behavior to a method.

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Supplementary Topics

Scope a method extension with refinements

Activate an extension in a lexical scope.

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Recognize alias, undef, BEGIN and END

Identify less common forms and their effect on execution.

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