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Ruby

Jeff Lange
Jeff Lange
8,788 Points
Posted by Jeff Lange
Jeff Lange
8,788 Points

Can't get an if block to work properly in Ruby

I'm a Ruby newb, and I started messing around writing some code just to see what I could figure out so far.

I wrote some code that would

  1. ask the user to input the value of the variable "a"
  2. react based on what the user inputs

Here's the code:

class IdentifyA 

    def initialize(name)  
    end

    def ask 
        print "What is the value of a? "
        a = gets.chomp
        if a == 1
            print "a is 1. "
        elsif a == 2
            print "a is 2. "
        else 
            print "I don't know that number, dude."
        end
    end

end

identify_a = IdentifyA.new("name")
identify_a.class # => IdentifyA

identify_a.ask

When I run the program in the console it asks the question properly, but even if I enter 1 or 2, it still returns "I don't know that number dude."

What do I need to change?

2 Answers

Joseph Kato
Joseph Kato
35,340 Points
Joseph Kato
Joseph Kato
35,340 Points

Hi Jeff,

I think the issue is that you're comparing different data types; a is a string, but it's being compared to integers.

Jeff Lange
Jeff Lange
8,788 Points
Jeff Lange
Jeff Lange
8,788 Points

so is the issue with "gets" then? Is there some other command I can use that looks for the input to be an integer rather than a string? I assumed "gets" was good good for either values or strings.

Joseph Kato
Joseph Kato
35,340 Points
Joseph Kato
Joseph Kato
35,340 Points

Either of these should work:

a = gets.to_i

Or change your comparison to:

a == '1'
Jeff Lange
Jeff Lange
8,788 Points
Jeff Lange
Jeff Lange
8,788 Points

Perfect! That worked.

I had to look up the .to_i method for it to make sense, and found that .to_f would work as well. Either way, as you were saying, I needed to let my program know it was looking for a numerical value rather than a string, and that method is what made it work.

Thank you again!