Strings

  • myString << "apple" (update method) is faster than myString += "apple" (no extra object creation)

Double-quote strings

  • Backslash substitutions are made
  • #{expr} expressions are interpolated
  • The braces aren't necessary for global, instance, and class variables
"..."

%Q{...}, %Q[...], %Q(...), %Q<...>
%Q/.../, %Q|...|

"Hello, #{expr}\n"

Backslash escapes

\"  : Double quote
\\  : Backslash

\n  : Linefeed
\r  : Carriage return
\t  : Tab
\s  : Space

\x[0-9A-Fa-f]{1,2} : Character value in hexadecimal.
\[0-7]{1,3}        : Character value in octal.

Single-quote strings

  • Very little processing is done to the string
'...'

%q{...}, %q[...], %q(...), %q<...>
%q/.../, %q|...|

Backslash escapes

\'  : Single quote
\\  : Backslash

Multi-line strings

str = "Multi-line" \
      "string"
  • Append a backslash character to the end of every non-final line.

Heredoc text

<<IDENTIFIER | QUOTED_STRING
...
IDENTIFIER | QUOTED_STRING
  • If add a minus sign after the <<, can indent the closing identifier / quoted string