Complete List and Precedence

Higher precedence (lower number in the above table) operators have their immediate arguments evaluated first. Precedence order can be altered with () blocks. For example, because * has higher precedence than +, then:
1 + 2 * 3 == 7
(1 + 2) * 3 == 9

Association direction controls which operators have their arguments evaluated first when multiple operators with the same precedence appear in a row. For example, because - has left association:

1 - 2 - 3 == (1 - 2) - 3 == -1 - 3 == -4

instead of:

1 - 2 - 3 == 1 - (2 - 3) == 1 - -1 == 0

Because ** has right association:

2 ** 3 ** 2 == 2 ** (3 ** 2) == 2 ** 9 == 512

instead of:

2 ** 3 ** 2 == (2 ** 3) ** 2 == 8 ** 2 == 64

{} blocks have lower precedence than the above operators, followed by do/end blocks. Array accesses with [] can be thought of as having a higher precedence than any above operator.

The operators ** through !~ can be overridden (defined for new classes, or redefined for existing operations).

Note that rescue, if, unless, while, and until are operators when used as modifiers in one-liners (as in the above examples) but can also be used as keywords.

Other operators

The dot operator . is used for calling methods on objects, also known as passing a message to the object.

Ruby 2.3.0 introduced the safe navigation operator &., also known as the "lonely operator".^[2] This allows replacing

x = foo && foo.bar && foo.bar.baz

with

x = foo&.bar&.baz

An equivalent .dig() method was introduced for hashes and arrays:

hash_variable.dig(:foo, :bar, :baz)
array_variable.dig(1, 0, 2)

are safer versions of:

hash_variable[:foo][:bar][:baz]
array_variable[1][0][2]

The safe navigation operator will raise an error if a requested method, key, or index is not available; unlike the technique of using try() for this purpose, which will return nil.^[3]

Yukihiro Matsumoto considered ! ?. and .? before settling on &. because:^[4]

• ?. conflicts with *?
• ?. is used by other languages, thus .? is confusingly similar but different
• ! conflicts with "not" logic
• ? is already used by convention for functions that return booleans
• &. is reminiscent of the && syntax the operator is replacing

!! is sometimes seen, but this is simply the ! operator twice. It is used to force the following expression to evaluate to a boolean. This technique is considered non-idiomatic and poor programming practice, because there are more explicit ways to force such a conversion (which is rarely needed to begin with).

Assignment

Assignment in Ruby is done using the equal operator "=". This is both for variables and objects, but since strings, floats, and integers are actually objects in Ruby, you're always assigning objects.

Examples:

  myvar = 'myvar is now this string'
  var = 321
  dbconn = Mysql::new('localhost','root','password')

Self assignment

  x = 1           #=>1
  x += x          #=>2
  x -= x          #=>0
  x += 4          #=>x was 0 so x= + 4 # x is positive 4
  x *= x          #=>16
  x **= x         #=>18446744073709551616 # Raise to the power
  x /= x          #=>1

A frequent question from C and C++ types is "How do you increment a variable? Where are ++ and -- operators?" In Ruby, one should use x+=1 and x-=1 to increment or decrement a variable.

  x = 'a'
  x.succ!         #=>"b" : succ! method is defined for String, but not for Integer types

Multiple assignments

Examples:

  var1, var2, var3 = 10, 20, 30
  var1           #=> 10
  var2           #=> 20
  var3           #=> 30
  
  myArray=%w(John Michel Fran Doug) # %w() can be used as syntactic sugar to simplify array creation
  var1,var2,var3,var4=*myArray
  puts var1           #=>John
  puts var4           #=>Doug

  names,school=myArray,'St. Whatever'
  names               #=>["John", "Michel", "Fran", "Doug"]
  school              #=>"St. Whatever"

Conditional assignment

  x = find_something() #=>nil
  x ||= "default"      #=>"default" : value of x will be replaced with "default", but only if x is nil or false
  x ||= "other"        #=>"default" : value of x is not replaced if it already is other than nil or false

Operator ||= is a shorthand form that closely resembles the expression:^[5]

 x = x || "default"

Operator ||= can be shorthand for code like:

  x = "(some fallback value)" unless respond_to? :x or x

In same way &&= operator works:

  x = get_node() #=>nil
  x &&= x.next_node #=> nil : x will be set to x.next_node, but only if x is NOT nil or false
  x = get_node() #=>Some Node
  x &&= x.next_node #=>Next Node

Operator &&= is a shorthand form of the expression:

 x && x = x.get_node()

Local Scope

Example:

 var = 2
 4.times do |x| 
   puts x = x*var
 end  
 #=> 
 0
 2
 4
 6
 puts x 
 #=> undefined local variable or method `x' for main:Object (NameError)

This error appears because this x(toplevel) is not the x(local) inside the do..end block the x(local) is a local variable to the block, whereas when trying the puts x(toplevel) we're calling a x variable that is in the top level scope, and since there's not one, Ruby protests.

Global scope

 $global = 0
 4.times do |var|
   $global = $global + var
   puts "var #{var}  global #{$global}"
 end
 #=>
 var 0  global 0
 var 1  global 1
 var 2  global 3
 var 3  global 6
 
 puts $global
 #=> 6

This output is given because prefixing a variable with a dollar sign makes the variable a global.

Instance scope

Within methods of a class, you can share variables by prefixing them with an @.

 class A
   def setup
     @instvar = 1
   end
   def go
     @instvar = @instvar*2
     puts @instvar
   end
 end
 instance = A.new
 instance.setup
 instance.go
 #=> 2
 instance.go
 #=> 4

Class scope

A class variable is one that is like a "static" variable in Java. It is shared by all instances of a class.

 class A
   @@classvar = 1
   def go
     @@classvar = @@classvar*2
     puts @@classvar
   end
 end
 instance = A.new
 instance.go
 #=> 2
 instance = A.new
 instance.go
 #=> 4 -- variable is shared across instances

Here's a demo showing the various types:

$variable
 class Test
   def initialize(arg1='kiwi')
     @instvar=arg1
     @@classvar=@instvar+' told you so!!'
     localvar=@instvar
   end
   def print_instvar
     puts @instvar
   end
   def print_localvar
     puts @@classvar
     puts localvar
   end
 end
 var=Test.new
 var.print_instvar              #=>"kiwi", it works because a @instance_var can be accesed inside the class
 var.print_localvar             #=>undefined local variable or method 'localvar' for #<Test:0x2b36208 @instvar="kiwi"> (NameError).

This will print the two lines "kiwi" and "kiwi told you so!!", then fail with a undefined local variable or method 'localvar' for #<Test:0x2b36208 @instvar="kiwi"> (NameError). Why? Well, in the scope of the method print_localvar there doesn't exists localvar, it exists in method initialize(until GC kicks it out). On the other hand, class variables '@@classvar' and '@instvar' are in scope across the entire class and, in the case of @@class variables, across the children classes.

 class SubTest < Test
   def print_classvar
     puts @@classvar
   end
 end
 newvar=SubTest.new              #newvar is created and it has @@classvar with the same value as the var  instance of Test!!
 newvar.print_classvar           #=>kiwi told you so!! 

Class variables have the scope of parent class AND children, these variables can live across classes, and can be affected by the children actions ;-)

 class SubSubTest < Test
   def print_classvar
     puts @@classvar
   end
   def modify_classvar
     @@classvar='kiwi kiwi waaai!!'
   end
 end
 subtest=SubSubTest.new          
 subtest.modify_classvar          #lets add a method that modifies the contents of @@classvar in  SubSubTest
 subtest.print_classvar

This new child of Test also has @@classvar with the original value newvar.print_classvar. The value of @@classvar has been changed to 'kiwi kiwi waaai!!' This shows that @@classvar is "shared" across parent and child classes.