ruby assignment in if statement

Ruby Tricks, Idiomatic Ruby, Refactorings and Best Practices

Conditional assignment.

Ruby is heavily influenced by lisp. One piece of obvious inspiration in its design is that conditional operators return values. This makes assignment based on conditions quite clean and simple to read.

There are quite a number of conditional operators you can use. Optimize for readability, maintainability, and concision.

If you're just assigning based on a boolean, the ternary operator works best (this is not specific to ruby/lisp but still good and in the spirit of the following examples!).

If you need to perform more complex logic based on a conditional or allow for > 2 outcomes, if / elsif / else statements work well.

If you're assigning based on the value of a single variable, use case / when A good barometer is to think if you could represent the assignment in a hash. For example, in the following example you could look up the value of opinion in a hash that looks like {"ANGRY" => comfort, "MEH" => ignore ...}

Ruby Assignments in Conditional Expressions

For around two and a half years, I had been working in a Python 2.x environment at my old job . Since switching companies, Ruby and Rails has replaced Python and Flask. At first glance, the languages don’t seem super different, but there are definitely common Ruby idioms that I needed to learn.

While adding a new feature, I came across code that looked like this:

Intuitively, I guessed this meant “if some_func() returns something, do_something with it.” What took a second was understanding that you could do an assignment conditional expressions.

Coming from Python

In Python 2.x land (and any Python 3 before 3.8), assigning a variable in a conditional expression would return a syntax error:

Most likely, the assignment in a conditional expression is a typo where the programmer meant to do a comparison == instead.

This kind of typo is a big enough issue that there is a programming style called Yoda Conditionals , where the constant portion of a comparison is put on the left side of the operator. This would cause a syntax error if = were used instead of == , like this:

Back to Ruby

Now that I’ve come across this kind of assignment in Ruby for the first time, I searched whether assignments in conditional expressions were good style. Sure enough, the Ruby Style Guide has a section called “Safe Assignment in Condition” . The section and examples are short and straightforward. You should take a look if this Ruby idiom is new to you!

What is interesting about this idiom is that the assignment should be wrapped in parentheses. Take a look at the examples from the Ruby Style Guide:

Why is the first example bad? Well, the Style Guide also says that you shouldn’t put parentheses around conditional expressions . Parentheses around assignments in conditional expressions are specifically called out as an exception to this rule.

My guess is that by enforcing two different conventions, one for pure conditionals and one for assignments in conditionals, the onus is now on the programmer to decide what they want to do. This should prevent typos where an assignment = is used when a comparison == was intended, or vice versa.

The Python Equivalent

As called out above, assignments in conditional expressions are possible in Python 3.8 via PEP 572 . Instead of using an = for these kinds of assignments, the PEP introduced a new operator := . As parentheses are more common in Python expressions, introducing a new operator := (informally known as “the walrus operator”!!) was probably Python’s solution to the typo issue.

Conditional Statements in Ruby

Conditional statements are an essential part of any programming language, including Ruby. They give us the ability to make decisions and alter the flow of our code based on certain conditions. In this tutorial, we will delve into the basics of conditional statements in Ruby, exploring various types and their usage.

If Statements

The most basic form of a conditional statement is the if statement. It allows us to execute a block of code only if a certain condition is met.

Here is a simple example:

In this example, we first declare a variable age with a value of 25. The if statement checks whether age is greater than 18. If the condition evaluates to true, the code inside the if block is executed, and the message "You are an adult!" is printed.

We can also add an else block after the if block to handle cases when the condition is not met. Taking the previous example further:

In this case, since age is 16, the condition age > 18 is false, and thus the code in the else block is executed, printing "You are not yet an adult."

ElseIf Statements

Ruby provides the elsif statement as a way to add additional conditions to our if statements. This allows us to handle multiple possible outcomes in a more organized manner.

Consider the following example:

In this example, we have multiple conditions. If age is less than 18, the first if block is executed. If not, the program checks the next condition using the elsif keyword. If age is between 18 and 65, the second elsif block is executed. Finally, if none of the previous conditions are met, the code inside the else block is executed.

Case Statements

Another way to handle conditional statements in Ruby is by using case statements. These statements can be helpful when dealing with multiple possible values for a variable.

Here is an example:

In this case statement, we check the value of the variable day . Depending on its value, different code blocks are executed. In this example, since day is "Monday," the code inside the first when block is executed, printing "It's the beginning of the week."

Case statements also support ranges and multiple conditions for each when block. They are a flexible tool for handling complex conditional logic.

Conditional statements are a crucial aspect of programming in any language, and Ruby is no exception. They provide us with the ability to control the flow of our code based on specific conditions. In this tutorial, we explored the basics of conditional statements in Ruby, including if statements, elsif statements for multiple conditions, and case statements for handling various possible values.

With the knowledge gained from this tutorial, you are now equipped to use conditional statements effectively in your Ruby programs. Happy coding!

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The Beginners Guide to Ruby If & Else Statements

Have you ever wondered how computers make decisions? How do they know what to do in different situations? Well, in the world of programming, this is done through conditional statements. And in the world of Ruby, this is done through if and else statements. In this article, we will dive deep into the world of Ruby if and else statements, learn about different types of conditions, and explore some special symbols that can be used in strings. So let’s get started!

How Do You Make Decisions in Ruby?

In simple terms, making decisions in Ruby means using conditional statements to perform certain actions based on specific conditions. These conditions can be anything from checking the value of a variable to comparing two values. Let’s take a look at some examples:

• If the room is too cold, turn on the heater;
• If we don’t have enough stock of a product, then send an order to buy more;
• If a customer has been with us for more than 3 years, then send them a thank you gift.

These are just a few examples of how we can use conditional statements to make decisions in Ruby. Now, let’s see how we can write these decisions in code using if statements.

Types Of Conditions

In Ruby, there are various types of conditions that we can use in our if statements. These conditions are represented by different symbols, each with its own meaning. Here’s a table that summarizes these symbols and their meanings:

One important thing to note here is that we use two equal signs (==) to check for equality, not just one. This is because a single equal sign (=) is used for assignment in Ruby. So if we want to check if two values are equal, we need to use two equal signs.

Ruby Unless Statement

Apart from the if statement, Ruby also has an unless statement that can be used to make decisions. The unless statement is the opposite of the if statement, meaning it will only execute the code inside its condition if the condition is false. Let’s take a look at an example:

In this example, the code inside the unless statement will only be executed if the value of stock is not greater than 0, which means the stock is equal to or less than 0. So in this case, the message “Sorry, we are out of stock!” will be printed.

The If Else Statement

Now, let’s move on to the if else statement. This statement allows us to specify what should happen if the condition is true and what should happen if the condition is false. Here’s an example:

In this example, if the value of age is greater than or equal to 18, the first message will be printed. Otherwise, the second message will be printed. 

How to Use Multiple Conditions

Sometimes, we may need to check multiple conditions before executing a certain piece of code. In such cases, we can use logical operators like && (and), || (or), and ! (not). These operators allow us to combine multiple conditions and create more complex conditions. Let’s take a look at an example:

In this example, the code inside the if statement will only be executed if both conditions are true, meaning the value of age is between 18 and 30.

Things to Watch Out For

When using conditional statements in Ruby, there are a few things that we need to watch out for to avoid unexpected results. One common mistake is using a single equal sign (=) instead of two (==) when checking for equality. Another thing to keep in mind is the order of conditions. If we have multiple conditions, the order in which they are written can affect the outcome. 

Special Symbols in Strings

Apart from the symbols we use in conditions, there are also some special symbols that we can use in strings to make our code more readable. These symbols are called escape sequences and they start with a backslash (). Here are some commonly used escape sequences:

For example, if we want to print a string that contains a double quote, we can use the escape sequence \” to tell Ruby that the double quote is part of the string and not the end of it. Let’s see an example:

If Construct in One Line

In Ruby, we can also write if statements in one line using the if construct. This is useful when we have a simple condition and don’t want to write multiple lines of code. Here’s an example:

This will print the message only if the value of stock is less than 1.

Is There an Alternative?

While if and else statements are commonly used in Ruby, there is an alternative that can be used in some situations. This alternative is called the ternary operator and it allows us to write if statements in a more concise way. Let’s take a look at an example:

This is equivalent to writing:

As you can see, the ternary operator can save us some lines of code, but it’s important to use it wisely and only when it makes our code more readable.

In this article, we learned about conditional statements in Ruby, specifically if and else statements. We explored different types of conditions and how to use them in our code. We also saw some special symbols that can be used in strings and how to write if statements in one line using the if construct. Lastly, we briefly mentioned the ternary operator as an alternative to if and else statements.

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Conditionals

if statements allow you to take different actions depending on which conditions are met. For example:

• if the city is equal to ( == ) "Toronto" , then set drinking_age to 19.
• Otherwise ( else ) set drinking_age to 21.

true and false

Ruby has a notion of true and false. This is best illustrated through some example. Start irb and type the following:

The if statements evaluates whether the expression (e.g. ' city == "Toronto" ) is true or false and acts accordingly.

Most common conditionals

Here is a list of some of the most common conditionals:

String comparisons

How do these operators behave with strings? Well, == is string equality and > and friends are determined by ASCIIbetical order.

What is ASCIIbetical order? The ASCII character table contains all the characters in the keyboard. It lists them in this order:

Start irb and type these in:

elsif allows you to add more than one condition. Take this for example:

Let's go through this:

• If age is 60 or more, we give a senior fare.
• If that's not true, but age is 14 or more, we give the adult fare.
• If that's not true, but age is more than 2 we give the child fare.
• Otherwise we ride free.

Ruby goes through this sequence of conditions one by one. The first condition to hold gets executed. You can put as many elsif 's as you like.

Example - fare_finder.rb

To make things more clear, let's put this in a program. The program asks for your age and gives you the corresponding fare.

Type this in and run it. It should behave like this:

This will output:

Here age is both greater than 10 and greater than 20. Only the first statement that holds true gets executed.

The correct way to write this would be:

Re-arrange these characters in ASCIIbetical order:

The ASCII table contains all the characters in the keyboard. Use irb to find out wheter the characters "?" lies:

• After 9 but before A.
• After Z but before a.

Using your experience the previous question, make a program that accepts a character input and tells you if the character lines:

Then try the program with the following characters:

Sample answers:

• $ lies before 0
• < lies between 9 and A
• - lies between Z and a
• ~ lies after z

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Ruby - if...else, case, unless

Ruby offers conditional structures that are pretty common to modern languages. Here, we will explain all the conditional statements and modifiers available in Ruby.

Ruby if...else Statement

if expressions are used for conditional execution. The values false and nil are false, and everything else are true. Notice Ruby uses elsif, not else if nor elif.

Executes code if the conditional is true. If the conditional is not true, code specified in the else clause is executed.

An if expression's conditional is separated from code by the reserved word then , a newline, or a semicolon.

Ruby if modifier

Executes code if the conditional is true.

This will produce the following result −

Ruby unless Statement

Executes code if conditional is false. If the conditional is true, code specified in the else clause is executed.

Ruby unless modifier

Executes code if conditional is false.

Ruby case Statement

Compares the expression specified by case and that specified by when using the === operator and executes the code of the when clause that matches.

The expression specified by the when clause is evaluated as the left operand. If no when clauses match, case executes the code of the else clause.

A when statement's expression is separated from code by the reserved word then, a newline, or a semicolon. Thus −

is basically similar to the following −

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Ruby If Statement

When you’re programming in Ruby, you may want to run certain code only if a condition is met. For example, you may want to stop a customer from buying a product if there is no stock left in inventory, or only allow a customer to proceed with a purchase if they have filled out all the relevant forms.

In order to perform these actions, we need to employ the use of an if statement . In simple terms, if statements allow Ruby programs to make decisions based on certain criteria. If a condition is met, then the program will do something.

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In this tutorial, we are going to break down the basics of if statements in Ruby, discuss the types of conditions you can use, and explore if else statements.

If statements can be used to allow a program to make decisions based on a certain set of criteria. For example, you may want to give a customer a discount if they are a senior citizen, or if they have a coupon listed on their account.

Here is the syntax for an if statement in Ruby:

Let’s use an example to illustrate how if statements work. Let’s say we have a user who is trying to buy a ticket on our online store, and we need to verify if they are 16 or older. Here’s an example of an if statement that will accomplish this goal:

Our above code returns nothing because our user’s age is 17. But if our user was under the age of 16, we would see this message:

If Else Statement

With an if statement, we only execute code when our requirements are met. However, we may want something else to happen if our conditions are not met.

For example, let’s say that we want to present a user with a message if they missed filling out the address form field when they were making a purchase. We also want to present them with a message if the form was filled out correctly, so they know their purchase will go through.

We can use the if else statement to implement this in our code. The else statement is written after the if statement and has no conditions. Here is the syntax for an else block:

Let’s use the same example as we used above to illustrate an if statement , and add in a message that appears if a user is 16 or older:

The above code first defines our user’s age, which is 17 in this case. Then, it runs an if statement to evaluate whether the user age is less than 16 conditional is true. Since our user is over the age of 16, the program runs the else code. In this case, our code returns the following:

We can take this one step further by using an elsif statement. This statement gives us the ability to check for another set of criteria if our first statement evaluates to false. For example, we may be operating a movie theater and offer different rates depending on the age of the customer.

Here’s an example of an elsif statement that checks a customer’s age and returns the price they should pay for a ticket:

There is a lot going on here, so let’s break it down. On the first lines, we define our customer’s age as 17 , and the ticket price as 0 . Then, our program executes an if statement to check the age of the customer and set the ticket price accordingly.

If our customer is 16 or under, they pay $10 for their ticket; if our customer is aged over 16 and under 65, they’ll pay $15; if our customer is over the age of 65, they’ll pay $10.

In this case, our customer is 17, which means our code will return the following:

Multiple Conditions

If you want to check if two things are true at the same time, you can use multiple conditions. In the above example, we illustrated how an if statement can be given multiple conditions by checking if a customer’s age was between 16 and 65.

In Ruby, we use the && ( AND ) operator to separate the conditions we want to check are true. Here’s an example of an if statement with multiple conditions:

We can use the && operator as many times as we want to check if a certain statement evaluates to be true.

On the other hand, if we want to check if either one of two or more statements are true, we can use the || ( OR ) operator. This operator would be useful if, for example, we want to run code if a user is either a gold or platinum customer. Here’s an example of the || operator in action:

Because our user is on the Gold loyalty plan, our code returns the following:

But if our user was not on the Gold or Platinum loyalty plan, our code would return 0 .

Ruby Conditions

In the if statement we defined earlier in the tutorial, we checked if a user’s age was 16 or greater, but there are other symbols you can use in an if statement. We call these conditional statements or conditional operators.

Here is a list of the conditions you can use in your if statements:

If statements can be used in the Ruby programming language to evaluate whether a statement is true and run code if that statement is true. They can be useful if you have specific code that should only be run when a set of conditions are met. For example, you may want to allow a user to submit a form only if they are logged in.

In this tutorial, we have discussed the basics of if statements in Ruby. We have also explored how you can use else and elseif to customize your if statements based on multiple possible outcomes.

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Now you’re ready to use if statements like a Ruby expert!

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Ruby | Decision Making (if, if-else, if-else-if, ternary) | Set – 1

Decision Making in programming is similar to decision making in real life. In programming too, a certain block of code needs to be executed when some condition is fulfilled. A programming language uses control statements to control the flow of execution of the program based on certain conditions. These are used to cause the flow of execution to advance and branch based on changes to the state of a program. Similarly, in Ruby, the if-else statement is used to test the specified condition. 

Decision-Making Statements in Ruby:  

if statement

• if-else statement
• if – elsif ladder
• Ternary statement

If statement in Ruby is used to decide whether a certain statement or block of statements will be executed or not i.e if a certain condition is true then a block of statement is executed otherwise not.

Flowchart:  

Output:  

if – else Statement

In this ‘if’ statement used to execute block of code when the condition is true and ‘else’ statement is used to execute a block of code when the condition is false.

Syntax:   

Example:   

If – elsif – else ladder Statement

Here, a user can decide among multiple options. ‘if’ statements are executed from the top down. As soon as one of the conditions controlling the ‘if’ is true, the statement associated with that ‘if’ is executed, and the rest of the ladder is bypassed. If none of the conditions is true, then the final else statement will be executed.

Ternary Statement

In Ruby ternary statement is also termed as the shortened if statement . It will first evaluate the expression for true or false value and then execute one of the statements. If the expression is true, then the true statement is executed else false statement will get executed.

Syntax:  

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Conditionals

Conditionals control the flow of execution of your program based on conditions that you define. Conditionals are the decision-making statements in your program.

If Statements

Decides if a block of code will be executed or not based on whether a condition is true.

If - Else Statements

If the condition in an if statement is false, the block of code in the else statement will be executed.

If - Elseif - Else Statements

If the if statement is not true, the block of code in the elseif statement will be executed if the condition is true. There may me multiple elseif statements. Finally, if none of the conditions are true, the block of code in the else statement will be executed.

Ternary Statements

A shorter version of the if statement. It will evaluate an expression, if true, it will execute the code following the ? . If false, execute the code following the : .

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if is_student and is_smart puts "You are a student" elsif is_student and !is_smart puts "You are not a smart student" else puts "You are not a student and not smart" end

>, <, >=, <=, !=, ==

if 1 > 3 puts "number comparison was true" end

if "a" > "b" puts "string comparison was true" end

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Using assignment in an if statement #53

amiel commented Oct 4, 2011

• 🎉 2 reactions

philtr commented Oct 7, 2011

Sorry, something went wrong.

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Ruby: One-Line If-Then-Else [duplicate]

I am wondering if there is a way in Ruby to write a one-line if-then-else statement using words as operators, in a manner similar to python's

I am aware of the classic ternary conditional, but I have the feeling Ruby is more of a "wordsey" language than a "symboley" language, so I am trying to better encapsulate the spirit of the language.

I also am aware of this method,

which is basically squishing a multi-liner onto one line, but the end at the end of the line feels cumbersome and redundant. I think the ternary conditional would be preferable to this.

So for you who know Ruby well, is there a better way to write this? If not, which of the methods is the most Rubyesque?

The following questions are not addressed by the linked post:

• Is there a cleaner way than if a then b else c end to write a "wordsey" one-line if-then-else in Ruby?
• Is the ternary conditional or the wordsey version more appropriate for the Ruby paradigm?

• @Apollys I haven't downvoted or voted to close since I'm not sure. If I did either, I would explicitly say so. The link was just a suggestion. Take it or leave it. –  Carcigenicate Commented Apr 22, 2017 at 1:33
• @Carcigenicate Okay, coincidental timing then, my apologies kind sir. I did read that topic before posting this. (But notice that I wrote "I am aware of the classic ternary conditional...") –  Apollys supports Monica Commented Apr 22, 2017 at 1:42
• 1 The duplicate does answer your question, including an answer that links to a style guide. –  Martijn Pieters Commented Apr 22, 2017 at 9:52

2 Answers 2

The two one liners that exist are the two you already described:

So to answer your questions:

• The ternary is preferred according to this , this , while the if-struct is preferred according to this , and this . Ruby does not have an official style guide, you won't find a concrete answer I'm afraid. Personally, I use the if-struct, as it reduces cognitive load, if being more verbose.

However, all the most of the style guides say ternary operators are fine for simple constructs:

Ruby is very flexible and is often used to create Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), and while this example is not really a DSL, you could use it to create a more expressive ternary method on the object class.

You can change the method name, and parameters to fit whatever context you prefer.

ps: this assumes a ruby version >= 2.1

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