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Ruby Ruby Basics (Retired) How Ruby Works The Ruby Programming Language

Posted by A X
A X
12,842 Points

What does 'nil' signify?

I just watched the first intro to Ruby video and Jason doesn't explain what the nil is in the result when the puts is run. What is nil?

irb > puts "Burrito Continent!"
Burrito Continent!
=> nil

2 Answers

Daniel Crews
Daniel Crews
14,008 Points
Daniel Crews
Daniel Crews
14,008 Points

Every method call on an object returns a value, sometimes that value is a result of an expression evaluation, sometimes it is an explicit return, sometimes it is simply nothing. nil is nothing. In the expression above, the puts method performs its action, which is to print to the output. It performs no evaluation and returns nothing at all.

David Cisneros
David Cisneros
10,472 Points
David Cisneros
David Cisneros
10,472 Points

nil is a ruby object that represents quite literally "nothing".

A X
A X
12,842 Points

Why does the nil get printed after running the puts?