RUBY(1) Ruby Programmers Reference Guide RUBY(1)

NAME
ruby — Interpreted object-oriented scripting language

SYNOPSIS
ruby [ −-copyright] [ −-version] [ −Sacdlnpswvy] [ −0[octal]] [ −C directory]
[ −F pattern] [ −I directory] [ −K c] [ −T[level]] [ −e command]
[ −i[extension]] [ −r library] [ −x[directory]] [ −− ] [program_file]
[argument . . .]

DESCRIPTION
Ruby is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. It has many fea-
tures to process text files and to do system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, and
extensible.
If you want a language for easy object-oriented programming, or you don’t like the Perl ugliness, or you do
like the concept of LISP, but don’t like too much parentheses, Ruby may be the language of your choice.

FEATURES
Ruby’s features are as follows:
Interpretive
Ruby is an interpreted language, so you don’t have to recompile programs written in Ruby to
execute them.
Variables have no type (dynamic typing)
Variables in Ruby can contain data of any type. You don’t have to worry about variable typing.
Consequently, it has a weaker compile time check.
No declaration needed
You can use variables in your Ruby programs without any declarations. Variable names denote their
scope, local, global, instance, etc.
Simple syntax
Ruby has a simple syntax influenced slightly from Eiffel.
No user-level memory management
Ruby has automatic memory management. Objects no longer referenced from anywhere are auto-
matically collected by the garbage collector built into the interpreter.
Everything is an object
Ruby is the purely object-oriented language, and was so since its creation. Even such basic data as
integers are seen as objects.
Class, inheritance, and methods
Of course, as an object-oriented language, Ruby has such basic features like classes, inheritance,
and methods.
Singleton methods
Ruby has the ability to define methods for certain objects. For example, you can define a press-but-
ton action for certain widget by defining a singleton method for the button. Or, you can make up
your own prototype based object system using singleton methods, if you want to.
Mix-in by modules
Ruby intentionally does not have the multiple inheritance as it is a source of confusion. Instead,
Ruby has the ability to share implementations across the inheritance tree. This is often called
‘Mix-in’.

UNIX December 31, 2002 1

RUBY(1) Ruby Programmers Reference Guide RUBY(1)

Iterators
Ruby has iterators for loop abstraction.
Closures
In Ruby, you can objectify the procedure.
Text processing and regular expression
Ruby has a bunch of text processing features like in Perl.
Bignums
With built-in bignums, you can for example calculate factorial(400).
Exception handling
As in Java(tm).
Direct access to the OS
Ruby can use most UNIX system calls, often used in system programming.
Dynamic loading
On most UNIX systems, you can load object files into the Ruby interpreter on-the-fly.
OPTIONS
Ruby interpreter accepts following command-line options (switches). They are quite similar to those of
perl(1).
−-copyright Prints the copyright notice.
−-version Prints the version of Ruby interpreter.
−0[octal] (The digit “zero”.) Specifies the input record separator ($/) as an octal number. If no
digit is given, the null character is taken as the separator. Other switches may follow the
digits. −00 turns Ruby into paragraph mode. −0777 makes Ruby read whole file at
once as a single string since there is no legal character with that value.
−C directory Causes Ruby to switch to the directory.
−F pattern Specifies input field separator ($;).
−I directory Used to tell Ruby where to load the library scripts. Directory path will be added to the
load-path variable ($:).
−K kcode Specifies KANJI (Japanese) encoding.
−S Makes Ruby use the PATH environment variable to search for script, unless if its name
begins with a slash. This is used to emulate #! on machines that don’t support it, in the
following manner:
#! /usr/local/bin/ruby
# This line makes the next one a comment in Ruby \
exec /usr/local/bin/ruby -S $0 $!
−T[level] Turns on taint checks at the specified level (default 1).
−a Turns on auto-split mode when used with −n or −p. In auto-split mode, Ruby executes
$F = $_.split
at beginning of each loop.
−c Causes Ruby to check the syntax of the script and exit without executing. If there are no
syntax errors, Ruby will print “Syntax OK” to the standard output.

UNIX December 31, 2002 2

RUBY(1) Ruby Programmers Reference Guide RUBY(1)

−d
−-debug Turns on debug mode. $DEBUG will be set to true.
−e command Specifies script from command-line while telling Ruby not to search the rest of argu-
ments for a script file name.
−h
−-help Prints a summary of the options.
−i extension Specifies in-place-edit mode. The extension, if specified, is added to old file name to
make a backup copy. For example:
% echo matz > /tmp/junk
% cat /tmp/junk
matz
% ruby -p -i.bak -e ’$_.upcase!’ /tmp/junk
% cat /tmp/junk
MATZ
% cat /tmp/junk.bak
matz
−l (The lowercase letter “ell”.) Enables automatic line-ending processing, which means to
firstly set $\ to the value of $/, and secondly chops every line read using chop!.
−n Causes Ruby to assume the following loop around your script, which makes it iterate
over file name arguments somewhat like sed −n or awk.
while gets
...
end
−p Acts mostly same as -n switch, but print the value of variable $_ at the each end of the
loop. For example:
% echo matz | ruby -p -e ’$_.tr! "a-z", "A-Z"’
MATZ
−r library Causes Ruby to load the library using require. It is useful when using −n or −p.
−s Enables some switch parsing for switches after script name but before any file name
arguments (or before a −− ). Any switches found there are removed from ARGV and set
the corresponding variable in the script. For example:
#! /usr/local/bin/ruby -s
# prints "true" if invoked with ‘-xyz’ switch.
print "true\n" if $xyz
On some systems $0 does not always contain the full pathname, so you need the −S
switch to tell Ruby to search for the script if necessary. To handle embedded spaces or
such. A better construct than $! would be ${1+"$@"}, but it does not work if the
script is being interpreted by csh(1).
−v
−-verbose Enables verbose mode. Ruby will print its version at the beginning, and set the variable
$VERBOSE to true. Some methods print extra messages if this variable is true. If this
switch is given, and no other switches are present, Ruby quits after printing its version.

UNIX December 31, 2002 3

RUBY(1) Ruby Programmers Reference Guide RUBY(1)

−w Enables verbose mode without printing version message at the beginning. It sets the
$VERBOSE variable to true.
−x[directory] Tells Ruby that the script is embedded in a message. Leading garbage will be discarded
until the first that starts with “#!” and contains the string, “ruby”. Any meaningful
switches on that line will applied. The end of script must be specified with either EOF,
ˆD (control-D), ˆZ (control-Z), or reserved word __END__. If the directory
name is specified, Ruby will switch to that directory before executing script.
−y
−-yydebug Turns on compiler debug mode. Ruby will print a bunch of internal state messages dur-
ing compiling scripts. You don’t have to specify this switch, unless you are going to
debug the Ruby interpreter.
ENVIRONMENT
RUBYLIB A colon-separated list of directories that are appended to Ruby’s library load path
($:).
e.g.:
RUBYLIB="$HOME/lib/ruby:$HOME/lib/rubyext"
RUBYOPT Additional Ruby options.
e.g.
RUBYOPT="-w -Ke"
RUBYPATH A colon-separated list of directories that Ruby searches for Ruby programs when the
−S flag is specified. This variable precedes the PATH environment variable.
RUBYSHELL The path to the system shell command. This environment variable is enabled for only
mswin32, mingw32, and OS/2 platforms. If this variable is not defined, Ruby refers to
COMSPEC.
PATH Ruby refers to the PATH environment variable on calling Kernel#system.
RUBYLIB_PREFIX This variable is obsolete.
AUTHORS
Ruby is designed and implemented by Yukihiro Matsumoto "[email protected]#.

UNIX December 31, 2002 4