Ruby is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-
oriented programming. It has many features to process text files and to do
system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, and
extensible. If you want a language for easy object-oriented programming,
or you don't like the Perl ugliness, or you do like the concept of LISP,
but don't like too much parentheses, Ruby may be the language of your
choice. Ruby's features are as follows: Ruby is an interpreted language,
so you don't have to recompile programs written in Ruby to execute them.
Variables in Ruby can contain data of any type. You don't have to worry
about variable typing. Consequently, it has a weaker compile time check.
You can use variables in your Ruby programs without any declarations.
Variable names denote their scope, local, global, instance, etc. Ruby has
a simple syntax influenced slightly from Eiffel. Ruby has automatic memory
management. Objects no longer referenced from anywhere are automatically
collected by the garbage collector built into the interpreter. Ruby is the
purely object-oriented language, and was so since its creation. Even such
basic data as integers are seen as objects. Of course, as an object-
oriented language, Ruby has such basic features like classes, inheritance,
and methods. Ruby has the ability to define methods for certain objects.
For example, you can define a press-button action for certain widget by
defining a singleton method for the button. Or, you can make up your own
prototype based object system using singleton methods, if you want to.
Ruby intentionally does not have the multiple inheritance as it is a source
of confusion. Instead, Ruby has the ability to share implementations
across the inheritance tree. This is often called Ruby has iterators for
loop abstraction. In Ruby, you can objectify the procedure. Ruby has a
bunch of text processing features like in Perl. With built-in bignums, you
can for example calculate factorial(400). As in Java(tm). Ruby can use
most system calls, often used in system programming. On most systems, you
can load object files into the Ruby interpreter on-the-fly. Ruby
interpreter accepts following command-line options (switches). They are
quite similar to those of Prints the copyright notice. Prints the version
of Ruby interpreter. (The digit Specifies the input record separator as an
octal number. If no digit is given, the null character is taken as the
separator. Other switches may follow the digits. turns Ruby into
paragraph mode. makes Ruby read whole file at once as a single string
since there is no legal character with that value. Causes Ruby to switch
to the directory. Specifies input field separator Used to tell Ruby where
to load the library scripts. Directory path will be added to the load-path
variable Specifies KANJI (Japanese) encoding. Makes Ruby use the
environment variable to search for script, unless if its name begins with a
slash. This is used to emulate on machines that don't support it, in the
following manner: #! /usr/local/bin/ruby # This line makes the next one a
comment in Ruby \
exec /usr/local/bin/ruby -S $0 $* Turns on taint checks at the specified
level (default 1). Turns on auto-split mode when used with or In auto-
split mode, Ruby executes at beginning of each loop. Causes Ruby to check
the syntax of the script and exit without executing. If there are no syntax
errors, Ruby will print to the standard output. Turns on debug mode. will
be set to true. Specifies script from command-line while telling Ruby not
to search the rest of arguments for a script file name. Prints a summary
of the options. Specifies in-place-edit mode. The extension, if
specified, is added to old file name to make a backup copy. For example: %
echo matz > /tmp/junk % cat /tmp/junk matz % ruby -p -i.bak -e '$_.upcase!'
/tmp/junk % cat /tmp/junk MATZ % cat /tmp/junk.bak matz (The lowercase
letter Enables automatic line-ending processing, which means to firstly set
to the value of and secondly chops every line read using Causes Ruby to
assume the following loop around your script, which makes it iterate over
file name arguments somewhat like or while gets
... end Acts mostly same as -n switch, but print the value of variable
at the each end of the loop. For example: % echo matz | ruby -p -e '$_.tr!
"a-z", "A-Z"' MATZ Causes Ruby to load the library using require. It is
useful when using or Enables some switch parsing for switches after script
name but before any file name arguments (or before a Any switches found
there are removed from and set the corresponding variable in the script.
For example: #! /usr/local/bin/ruby -s # prints "true" if invoked with `-
xyz' switch. print "true\n" if $xyz On some systems does not always
contain the full pathname, so you need the switch to tell Ruby to search
for the script if necessary. To handle embedded spaces or such. A better
construct than would be but it does not work if the script is being
interpreted by Enables verbose mode. Ruby will print its version at the
beginning, and set the variable to true. Some methods print extra messages
if this variable is true. If this switch is given, and no other switches
are present, Ruby quits after printing its version. Enables verbose mode
without printing version message at the beginning. It sets the variable to
true. Tells Ruby that the script is embedded in a message. Leading
garbage will be discarded until the first that starts with and contains the
string, Any meaningful switches on that line will applied. The end of
script must be specified with either or reserved word If the directory name
is specified, Ruby will switch to that directory before executing script.
Turns on compiler debug mode. Ruby will print a bunch of internal state
messages during compiling scripts. You don't have to specify this switch,
unless you are going to debug the Ruby interpreter. A colon-separated list
of directories that are appended to Ruby's library load path e.g.:
Additional Ruby options. e.g. A colon-separated list of directories that
Ruby searches for Ruby programs when the flag is specified. This variable
precedes the environment variable. The path to the system shell command.
This environment variable is enabled for only mswin32, mingw32, and OS/2
platforms. If this variable is not defined, Ruby refers to Ruby refers to
the environment variable on calling Kernel#system. This variable is
obsolete. Ruby is designed and implemented by
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