Ruby | String Basics

In Ruby, string is a sequence of one or more characters. It may consist of numbers, letters, or symbols. Here strings are the objects, and apart from other languages, strings are mutable, i.e. strings can be changed in place instead of creating new strings. String’s object holds and manipulates an arbitrary sequence of the bytes that commonly represents a sequence of characters.

Creating Strings: To create the string, just put the sequence of characters either in double quotes or single quotes. Also, the user can store the string into some variable. In Ruby, there is no need to specify the data type of the variable.

Example:

# Ruby program to demonstrate
# the creation of strings

# using single quotes
puts 'Ruby String using single quotes'

# using double quotes
puts "Ruby String using double quotes"

# storing string into variables
str1 = "GFG"
str2 = 'Geeks'

# displaying string
puts str1
puts str2

Output:

Ruby String using single quotes
Ruby String using double quotes
GFG
Geeks

Note: The only difference between using single and double quotes is that the double quotes will interpolates the variables but single quotes can’t interpolate.

Example:

# Ruby program to demonstrate the difference
# while using single and double quotes to
# create strings

# storing string into variables
str1 = "GFG"
str2 = 'Geeks'

# using single quotes
puts 'Cannot Interpolate str1: #{str1}'

# using double quotes
puts "Interpolating str2: #{str2}"

Output:

Cannot Interpolate str1: #{str1}
Interpolating str2: Geeks

Strings are objects: As you know that Ruby is an object-oriented language so string in Ruby are objects. Basically, an object is a combination of the data and methods which enhance the communication property.

Example:

# Ruby program to illustrate that
# string are objects in Ruby

#!/usr/bin/ruby

# using double quotes
str = "GeeksforGeeks"

puts str

# using new method to create string
# object and assigning value to it
str2 = String.new "GeeksforGeeks"

puts str2

Output:

GeeksforGeeks
GeeksforGeeks

Access String Elements: User can access the string elements by using the square brackets []. In square brackets [], the user can pass the strings, ranges or indexes.

Syntax:

name_of_string_variable[arguments]

Example:

# Ruby program to illustrate the
# accessing of string

#!/usr/bin/ruby

# storing string in variable
str = "GeeksforGeeks Sudo Placements"

# accessing the specified substring
puts str["Geeks"]
puts str['for']

# passing index as an argument which returns
# the  specified character
puts str[3]

# passing the negative index as an argument which
# returns the specified character from the
# last of the string
puts str[-3]

# passing Two arguments which are separated
# by a comma that returns characters starting
# from the 1st index and the 2nd index is the
# number of characters
puts str[14, 10]

# using range operators in passed arguments
puts str[14 .. 17]

Output:

Geeks
for
k
n
Sudo Place
Sudo

Creating Multiline Strings: In Ruby, a user can create the multiline strings easily whereas in other programming languages creating multiline strings requires a lot of efforts. There are three ways to create multiline strings in Ruby as follows:

1. Using Double Quotes(“”) It is the simplest way to create the multiline strings by just putting the string between the quotes. Between double quotes, the user can add the newline character and so on.
2. Using (%/ /) To create the multiline string just put the string between the %/ and /.
3. Using (<< STRING STRING) To create the multiline string just put the string between the << STRING and STRING. Here STRING should be in capital letters.

Example:

# Ruby program to illustrate the
# multiline strings

#!/usr/bin/ruby

# Using Double Quotes
puts "In Ruby, a user can create the multiline
      strings easily where in other programming
      languages creating multiline strings
      requires a lot of efforts"

puts ""

# Using %/ /
puts %/ In Ruby, a user can create the multiline
      strings easily where into other programming
      languages creating multiline strings
      requires a lot of efforts/

puts ""

# Using <<STRING STRING
puts <<STRING

In Ruby, a user can create the multiline
strings easily where into other programming
languages creating multiline strings
requires a lot of efforts
STRING

Output:

In Ruby, a user can create the multiline
      strings easily where in other programming 
      languages creating multiline strings 
      requires a lot of efforts

 In Ruby, a user can create the multiline
      strings easily where into other programming 
      languages creating multiline strings 
      requires a lot of efforts


In Ruby, a user can create the multiline
strings easily where into other programming 
languages creating multiline strings 
requires a lot of efforts 

String Replication: Sometimes a user may require to repeat some sort of string multiple times. So to make the replication of string in Ruby, make the use of (*) operator. This operator is preceded by the string to be replicated and followed by the number of times to make replicas.

Syntax:

string_variable_or_string * number_of_times

Example:

# Ruby program to illustrate the
# replication of strings

#!/usr/bin/ruby

# string to be replicate
str = "GeeksForGeeks\n"

# using * operator
puts str * 7

Output:

GeeksForGeeks
GeeksForGeeks
GeeksForGeeks
GeeksForGeeks
GeeksForGeeks
GeeksForGeeks
GeeksForGeeks