In the last article I left you with a cliffhanger; if you are here, then it worked. We previously discussed ranges and variables, and now we are going to speak about conditionals. But first, let's touch on ranges a bit more.
Ruby Conditionals - Unless Statements (Page 4 of 4 )
With IF statements, you are really seeking a True result from your Boolean question. With Unless statements, you are seeking just the opposite -- the False Boolean response.
Note that you cannot use elseif clauses in Unless statements.
hammer_time = 2
unless hammer_time == 2
puts “Ice Ice Baby!”
else
puts “Hammer Time!”
end
The above would result in: “Hammer Time!”
Case Statements
If you have a lot of If and elseif clauses, one way you can save time is by using the case statement. Here is an example:
action_type = “Flex”
case action
when “Walk”
puts “You are walking.”
when “Jog”
puts “You are jogging.”
when “Run”
puts “You are running”
when “Eat”
puts “Quit eating you fat pig!”
when “Flex”
puts “I didn't know muscles jiggled.”
else
puts “What? Sorry my hearing aid fell out, say it again.”
end
You could write If and else clauses for all of the above, but as you'll see it would constitute a lot more code. And let's face it, you're a lazy schlub.
action_type = “Flex”
if action_type == “Flex”
puts “I didn't know muscles jiggled.”
elseif action_type == “Walk”
puts “You are walking.”
elseif action_type == “Jog”
puts “You are Jogging.”
elseif action_type == “Run”
puts “You are running.”
else action_type == “Eat”
puts “Quit eating you fat pig!”
else
puts “What? Sorry my hearing aid fell out, say it again.”
end
As you can see, this can be time consuming. You can also use ranges within case statements. It looks like this:
yearly_salary = 40,000
case yearly_salary
when 0...10,000
puts “That's my monthly food bill.”
when 100,000...1,000,000
puts “I'm RIOTCH SNIOTCH!”
else
puts “Yeah, somewhere in that range.”
end
Well, we covered a lot of ground in that tutorial, but we still have more to cover. Be sure to come back next week, when I'll cover how to use Loops, how to call Methods, and maybe even how to not be so nerdy. Until then...
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Ruby-on-Rails 
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Ruby Operators and Arrays
