Net::HTTP exception class. You cannot use Net::HTTPExceptions directly; instead, you must use its subclasses.
Keyword completion module. This allows partial arguments to be specified and resolved against a list of acceptable values.
If you add a method, keep in mind two things: (1) the first argument will always be a list of nodes from which to filter. In the case of context methods (such as position), the function should return an array with a value for each child in the array. (2) all method calls from XML will have “-” replaced with “_”. Therefore, in XML, “local-name()” is identical (and actually becomes) “local_name()”
A complex number can be represented as a paired real number with imaginary unit; a+bi. Where a is real part, b is imaginary part and i is imaginary unit. Real a equals complex a+0i mathematically.
Complex object can be created as literal, and also by using Kernel#Complex, Complex::rect, Complex::polar or to_c method.
2+1i #=> (2+1i) Complex(1) #=> (1+0i) Complex(2, 3) #=> (2+3i) Complex.polar(2, 3) #=> (-1.9799849932008908+0.2822400161197344i) 3.to_c #=> (3+0i)
You can also create complex object from floating-point numbers or strings.
Complex(0.3) #=> (0.3+0i) Complex('0.3-0.5i') #=> (0.3-0.5i) Complex('2/3+3/4i') #=> ((2/3)+(3/4)*i) Complex('1@2') #=> (-0.4161468365471424+0.9092974268256817i) 0.3.to_c #=> (0.3+0i) '0.3-0.5i'.to_c #=> (0.3-0.5i) '2/3+3/4i'.to_c #=> ((2/3)+(3/4)*i) '1@2'.to_c #=> (-0.4161468365471424+0.9092974268256817i)
A complex object is either an exact or an inexact number.
Complex(1, 1) / 2 #=> ((1/2)+(1/2)*i) Complex(1, 1) / 2.0 #=> (0.5+0.5i)
A String object holds and manipulates an arbitrary sequence of bytes, typically representing characters. String objects may be created using String::new or as literals.
Because of aliasing issues, users of strings should be aware of the methods that modify the contents of a String object. Typically, methods with names ending in “!” modify their receiver, while those without a “!” return a new String. However, there are exceptions, such as String#[]=.
An Encoding instance represents a character encoding usable in Ruby. It is defined as a constant under the Encoding namespace. It has a name and optionally, aliases:
Encoding::ISO_8859_1.name #=> "ISO-8859-1" Encoding::ISO_8859_1.names #=> ["ISO-8859-1", "ISO8859-1"]
Ruby methods dealing with encodings return or accept Encoding instances as arguments (when a method accepts an Encoding instance as an argument, it can be passed an Encoding name or alias instead).
"some string".encoding #=> #<Encoding:UTF-8> string = "some string".encode(Encoding::ISO_8859_1) #=> "some string" string.encoding #=> #<Encoding:ISO-8859-1> "some string".encode "ISO-8859-1" #=> "some string"
Encoding::ASCII_8BIT is a special encoding that is usually used for a byte string, not a character string. But as the name insists, its characters in the range of ASCII are considered as ASCII characters. This is useful when you use ASCII-8BIT characters with other ASCII compatible characters.
The associated Encoding of a String can be changed in two different ways.
First, it is possible to set the Encoding of a string to a new Encoding without changing the internal byte representation of the string, with String#force_encoding. This is how you can tell Ruby the correct encoding of a string.
string #=> "R\xC3\xA9sum\xC3\xA9" string.encoding #=> #<Encoding:ISO-8859-1> string.force_encoding(Encoding::UTF_8) #=> "R\u00E9sum\u00E9"
Second, it is possible to transcode a string, i.e. translate its internal byte representation to another encoding. Its associated encoding is also set to the other encoding. See String#encode for the various forms of transcoding, and the Encoding::Converter class for additional control over the transcoding process.
string #=> "R\u00E9sum\u00E9" string.encoding #=> #<Encoding:UTF-8> string = string.encode!(Encoding::ISO_8859_1) #=> "R\xE9sum\xE9" string.encoding #=> #<Encoding::ISO-8859-1>
All Ruby script code has an associated Encoding which any String literal created in the source code will be associated to.
The default script encoding is Encoding::UTF-8 after v2.0, but it can be changed by a magic comment on the first line of the source code file (or second line, if there is a shebang line on the first). The comment must contain the word coding or encoding, followed by a colon, space and the Encoding name or alias:
# encoding: UTF-8 "some string".encoding #=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
The __ENCODING__ keyword returns the script encoding of the file which the keyword is written:
# encoding: ISO-8859-1 __ENCODING__ #=> #<Encoding:ISO-8859-1>
ruby -K will change the default locale encoding, but this is not recommended. Ruby source files should declare its script encoding by a magic comment even when they only depend on US-ASCII strings or regular expressions.
The default encoding of the environment. Usually derived from locale.
see Encoding.locale_charmap, Encoding.find(‘locale’)
The default encoding of strings from the filesystem of the environment. This is used for strings of file names or paths.
see Encoding.find(‘filesystem’)
Each IO object has an external encoding which indicates the encoding that Ruby will use to read its data. By default Ruby sets the external encoding of an IO object to the default external encoding. The default external encoding is set by locale encoding or the interpreter -E option. Encoding.default_external returns the current value of the external encoding.
ENV["LANG"] #=> "UTF-8" Encoding.default_external #=> #<Encoding:UTF-8> $ ruby -E ISO-8859-1 -e "p Encoding.default_external" #<Encoding:ISO-8859-1> $ LANG=C ruby -e 'p Encoding.default_external' #<Encoding:US-ASCII>
The default external encoding may also be set through Encoding.default_external=, but you should not do this as strings created before and after the change will have inconsistent encodings. Instead use ruby -E to invoke ruby with the correct external encoding.
When you know that the actual encoding of the data of an IO object is not the default external encoding, you can reset its external encoding with IO#set_encoding or set it at IO object creation (see IO.new options).
To process the data of an IO object which has an encoding different from its external encoding, you can set its internal encoding. Ruby will use this internal encoding to transcode the data when it is read from the IO object.
Conversely, when data is written to the IO object it is transcoded from the internal encoding to the external encoding of the IO object.
The internal encoding of an IO object can be set with IO#set_encoding or at IO object creation (see IO.new options).
The internal encoding is optional and when not set, the Ruby default internal encoding is used. If not explicitly set this default internal encoding is nil meaning that by default, no transcoding occurs.
The default internal encoding can be set with the interpreter option -E. Encoding.default_internal returns the current internal encoding.
$ ruby -e 'p Encoding.default_internal' nil $ ruby -E ISO-8859-1:UTF-8 -e "p [Encoding.default_external, \ Encoding.default_internal]" [#<Encoding:ISO-8859-1>, #<Encoding:UTF-8>]
The default internal encoding may also be set through Encoding.default_internal=, but you should not do this as strings created before and after the change will have inconsistent encodings. Instead use ruby -E to invoke ruby with the correct internal encoding.
IO encoding example In the following example a UTF-8 encoded string “Ru00E9sumu00E9” is transcoded for output to ISO-8859-1 encoding, then read back in and transcoded to UTF-8:
string = "R\u00E9sum\u00E9" open("transcoded.txt", "w:ISO-8859-1") do |io| io.write(string) end puts "raw text:" p File.binread("transcoded.txt") puts open("transcoded.txt", "r:ISO-8859-1:UTF-8") do |io| puts "transcoded text:" p io.read end
While writing the file, the internal encoding is not specified as it is only necessary for reading. While reading the file both the internal and external encoding must be specified to obtain the correct result.
$ ruby t.rb raw text: "R\xE9sum\xE9" transcoded text: "R\u00E9sum\u00E9"
Descendants of class Exception are used to communicate between Kernel#raise and rescue statements in begin ... end blocks. Exception objects carry information about the exception – its type (the exception’s class name), an optional descriptive string, and optional traceback information. Exception subclasses may add additional information like NameError#name.
Programs may make subclasses of Exception, typically of StandardError or RuntimeError, to provide custom classes and add additional information. See the subclass list below for defaults for raise and rescue.
When an exception has been raised but not yet handled (in rescue, ensure, at_exit and END blocks) the global variable $! will contain the current exception and $@ contains the current exception’s backtrace.
It is recommended that a library should have one subclass of StandardError or RuntimeError and have specific exception types inherit from it. This allows the user to rescue a generic exception type to catch all exceptions the library may raise even if future versions of the library add new exception subclasses.
For example:
class MyLibrary class Error < RuntimeError end class WidgetError < Error end class FrobError < Error end end
To handle both WidgetError and FrobError the library user can rescue MyLibrary::Error.
The built-in subclasses of Exception are:
StandardError – default for rescue
fatal – impossible to rescue
Raised when a signal is received.
begin Process.kill('HUP',Process.pid) sleep # wait for receiver to handle signal sent by Process.kill rescue SignalException => e puts "received Exception #{e}" end
produces:
received Exception SIGHUP
The most standard error types are subclasses of StandardError. A rescue clause without an explicit Exception class will rescue all StandardErrors (and only those).
def foo raise "Oups" end foo rescue "Hello" #=> "Hello"
On the other hand:
require 'does/not/exist' rescue "Hi"
raises the exception:
LoadError: no such file to load -- does/not/exist
EncodingError is the base class for encoding errors.
A rational number can be represented as a pair of integer numbers: a/b (b>0), where a is the numerator and b is the denominator. Integer a equals rational a/1 mathematically.
In Ruby, you can create rational objects with the Kernel#Rational, to_r, or rationalize methods or by suffixing r to a literal. The return values will be irreducible fractions.
Rational(1) #=> (1/1) Rational(2, 3) #=> (2/3) Rational(4, -6) #=> (-2/3) 3.to_r #=> (3/1) 2/3r #=> (2/3)
You can also create rational objects from floating-point numbers or strings.
Rational(0.3) #=> (5404319552844595/18014398509481984) Rational('0.3') #=> (3/10) Rational('2/3') #=> (2/3) 0.3.to_r #=> (5404319552844595/18014398509481984) '0.3'.to_r #=> (3/10) '2/3'.to_r #=> (2/3) 0.3.rationalize #=> (3/10)
A rational object is an exact number, which helps you to write programs without any rounding errors.
10.times.inject(0) {|t| t + 0.1 } #=> 0.9999999999999999 10.times.inject(0) {|t| t + Rational('0.1') } #=> (1/1)
However, when an expression includes an inexact component (numerical value or operation), it will produce an inexact result.
Rational(10) / 3 #=> (10/3) Rational(10) / 3.0 #=> 3.3333333333333335 Rational(-8) ** Rational(1, 3) #=> (1.0000000000000002+1.7320508075688772i)
A Struct is a convenient way to bundle a number of attributes together, using accessor methods, without having to write an explicit class.
The Struct class generates new subclasses that hold a set of members and their values. For each member a reader and writer method is created similar to Module#attr_accessor.
Customer = Struct.new(:name, :address) do def greeting "Hello #{name}!" end end dave = Customer.new("Dave", "123 Main") dave.name #=> "Dave" dave.greeting #=> "Hello Dave!"
See Struct::new for further examples of creating struct subclasses and instances.
In the method descriptions that follow, a “member” parameter refers to a struct member which is either a quoted string ("name") or a Symbol (:name).
Pseudo I/O on String object.
Commonly used to simulate ‘$stdio` or `$stderr`
require 'stringio' io = StringIO.new io.puts "Hello World" io.string #=> "Hello World\n"
StringScanner provides for lexical scanning operations on a String. Here is an example of its usage:
s = StringScanner.new('This is an example string') s.eos? # -> false p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> "This" p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> nil p s.scan(/\s+/) # -> " " p s.scan(/\s+/) # -> nil p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> "is" s.eos? # -> false p s.scan(/\s+/) # -> " " p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> "an" p s.scan(/\s+/) # -> " " p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> "example" p s.scan(/\s+/) # -> " " p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> "string" s.eos? # -> true p s.scan(/\s+/) # -> nil p s.scan(/\w+/) # -> nil
Scanning a string means remembering the position of a scan pointer, which is just an index. The point of scanning is to move forward a bit at a time, so matches are sought after the scan pointer; usually immediately after it.
Given the string “test string”, here are the pertinent scan pointer positions:
t e s t s t r i n g
0 1 2 ... 1
0
When you scan for a pattern (a regular expression), the match must occur at the character after the scan pointer. If you use scan_until, then the match can occur anywhere after the scan pointer. In both cases, the scan pointer moves just beyond the last character of the match, ready to scan again from the next character onwards. This is demonstrated by the example above.
Method Categories There are other methods besides the plain scanners. You can look ahead in the string without actually scanning. You can access the most recent match. You can modify the string being scanned, reset or terminate the scanner, find out or change the position of the scan pointer, skip ahead, and so on.
beginning_of_line? (bol?)
Data There are aliases to several of the methods.
BasicObject is the parent class of all classes in Ruby. It’s an explicit blank class.
BasicObject can be used for creating object hierarchies independent of Ruby’s object hierarchy, proxy objects like the Delegator class, or other uses where namespace pollution from Ruby’s methods and classes must be avoided.
To avoid polluting BasicObject for other users an appropriately named subclass of BasicObject should be created instead of directly modifying BasicObject:
class MyObjectSystem < BasicObject end
BasicObject does not include Kernel (for methods like puts) and BasicObject is outside of the namespace of the standard library so common classes will not be found without using a full class path.
A variety of strategies can be used to provide useful portions of the standard library to subclasses of BasicObject. A subclass could include Kernel to obtain puts, exit, etc. A custom Kernel-like module could be created and included or delegation can be used via method_missing:
class MyObjectSystem < BasicObject DELEGATE = [:puts, :p] def method_missing(name, *args, &block) super unless DELEGATE.include? name ::Kernel.send(name, *args, &block) end def respond_to_missing?(name, include_private = false) DELEGATE.include?(name) or super end end
Access to classes and modules from the Ruby standard library can be obtained in a BasicObject subclass by referencing the desired constant from the root like ::File or ::Enumerator. Like method_missing, const_missing can be used to delegate constant lookup to Object:
class MyObjectSystem < BasicObject def self.const_missing(name) ::Object.const_get(name) end end
The GetoptLong class allows you to parse command line options similarly to the GNU getopt_long() C library call. Note, however, that GetoptLong is a pure Ruby implementation.
GetoptLong allows for POSIX-style options like --file as well as single letter options like -f
The empty option -- (two minus symbols) is used to end option processing. This can be particularly important if options have optional arguments.
Here is a simple example of usage:
require 'getoptlong' opts = GetoptLong.new( [ '--help', '-h', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT ], [ '--repeat', '-n', GetoptLong::REQUIRED_ARGUMENT ], [ '--name', GetoptLong::OPTIONAL_ARGUMENT ] ) dir = nil name = nil repetitions = 1 opts.each do |opt, arg| case opt when '--help' puts <<-EOF hello [OPTION] ... DIR -h, --help: show help --repeat x, -n x: repeat x times --name [name]: greet user by name, if name not supplied default is John DIR: The directory in which to issue the greeting. EOF when '--repeat' repetitions = arg.to_i when '--name' if arg == '' name = 'John' else name = arg end end end if ARGV.length != 1 puts "Missing dir argument (try --help)" exit 0 end dir = ARGV.shift Dir.chdir(dir) for i in (1..repetitions) print "Hello" if name print ", #{name}" end puts end
Example command line:
hello -n 6 --name -- /tmp
OptionParser OptionParser is a class for command-line option analysis. It is much more advanced, yet also easier to use, than GetoptLong, and is a more Ruby-oriented solution.
The argument specification and the code to handle it are written in the same place.
It can output an option summary; you don’t need to maintain this string separately.
Optional and mandatory arguments are specified very gracefully.
Arguments can be automatically converted to a specified class.
Arguments can be restricted to a certain set.
All of these features are demonstrated in the examples below. See make_switch for full documentation.
require 'optparse' options = {} OptionParser.new do |opts| opts.banner = "Usage: example.rb [options]" opts.on("-v", "--[no-]verbose", "Run verbosely") do |v| options[:verbose] = v end end.parse! p options p ARGV
OptionParser can be used to automatically generate help for the commands you write:
require 'optparse' Options = Struct.new(:name) class Parser def self.parse(options) args = Options.new("world") opt_parser = OptionParser.new do |opts| opts.banner = "Usage: example.rb [options]" opts.on("-nNAME", "--name=NAME", "Name to say hello to") do |n| args.name = n end opts.on("-h", "--help", "Prints this help") do puts opts exit end end opt_parser.parse!(options) return args end end options = Parser.parse %w[--help] #=> # Usage: example.rb [options] # -n, --name=NAME Name to say hello to # -h, --help Prints this help
For options that require an argument, option specification strings may include an option name in all caps. If an option is used without the required argument, an exception will be raised.
require 'optparse' options = {} OptionParser.new do |parser| parser.on("-r", "--require LIBRARY", "Require the LIBRARY before executing your script") do |lib| puts "You required #{lib}!" end end.parse!
Used:
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -r optparse-test.rb:9:in `<main>': missing argument: -r (OptionParser::MissingArgument) $ ruby optparse-test.rb -r my-library You required my-library!
OptionParser supports the ability to coerce command line arguments into objects for us.
OptionParser comes with a few ready-to-use kinds of type coercion. They are:
Date – Anything accepted by Date.parse
DateTime – Anything accepted by DateTime.parse
Time – Anything accepted by Time.httpdate or Time.parse
URI – Anything accepted by URI.parse
Shellwords – Anything accepted by Shellwords.shellwords
String – Any non-empty string
Integer – Any integer. Will convert octal. (e.g. 124, -3, 040)
Float – Any float. (e.g. 10, 3.14, -100E+13)
Numeric – Any integer, float, or rational (1, 3.4, 1/3)
DecimalInteger – Like Integer, but no octal format.
OctalInteger – Like Integer, but no decimal format.
DecimalNumeric – Decimal integer or float.
TrueClass – Accepts ‘+, yes, true, -, no, false’ and defaults as true
FalseClass – Same as TrueClass, but defaults to false
Array – Strings separated by ‘,’ (e.g. 1,2,3)
Regexp – Regular expressions. Also includes options.
We can also add our own coercions, which we will cover soon.
As an example, the built-in Time conversion is used. The other built-in conversions behave in the same way. OptionParser will attempt to parse the argument as a Time. If it succeeds, that time will be passed to the handler block. Otherwise, an exception will be raised.
require 'optparse' require 'optparse/time' OptionParser.new do |parser| parser.on("-t", "--time [TIME]", Time, "Begin execution at given time") do |time| p time end end.parse!
Used:
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -t nonsense ... invalid argument: -t nonsense (OptionParser::InvalidArgument) $ ruby optparse-test.rb -t 10-11-12 2010-11-12 00:00:00 -0500 $ ruby optparse-test.rb -t 9:30 2014-08-13 09:30:00 -0400
The accept method on OptionParser may be used to create converters. It specifies which conversion block to call whenever a class is specified. The example below uses it to fetch a User object before the on handler receives it.
require 'optparse' User = Struct.new(:id, :name) def find_user id not_found = ->{ raise "No User Found for id #{id}" } [ User.new(1, "Sam"), User.new(2, "Gandalf") ].find(not_found) do |u| u.id == id end end op = OptionParser.new op.accept(User) do |user_id| find_user user_id.to_i end op.on("--user ID", User) do |user| puts user end op.parse!
Used:
$ ruby optparse-test.rb --user 1 #<struct User id=1, name="Sam"> $ ruby optparse-test.rb --user 2 #<struct User id=2, name="Gandalf"> $ ruby optparse-test.rb --user 3 optparse-test.rb:15:in `block in find_user': No User Found for id 3 (RuntimeError)
Hash The into option of order, parse and so on methods stores command line options into a Hash.
require 'optparse' params = {} OptionParser.new do |opts| opts.on('-a') opts.on('-b NUM', Integer) opts.on('-v', '--verbose') end.parse!(into: params) p params
Used:
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -a
{:a=>true}
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -a -v
{:a=>true, :verbose=>true}
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -a -b 100
{:a=>true, :b=>100}
The following example is a complete Ruby program. You can run it and see the effect of specifying various options. This is probably the best way to learn the features of optparse.
require 'optparse' require 'optparse/time' require 'ostruct' require 'pp' class OptparseExample Version = '1.0.0' CODES = %w[iso-2022-jp shift_jis euc-jp utf8 binary] CODE_ALIASES = { "jis" => "iso-2022-jp", "sjis" => "shift_jis" } class ScriptOptions attr_accessor :library, :inplace, :encoding, :transfer_type, :verbose, :extension, :delay, :time, :record_separator, :list def initialize self.library = [] self.inplace = false self.encoding = "utf8" self.transfer_type = :auto self.verbose = false end def define_options(parser) parser.banner = "Usage: example.rb [options]" parser.separator "" parser.separator "Specific options:" # add additional options perform_inplace_option(parser) delay_execution_option(parser) execute_at_time_option(parser) specify_record_separator_option(parser) list_example_option(parser) specify_encoding_option(parser) optional_option_argument_with_keyword_completion_option(parser) boolean_verbose_option(parser) parser.separator "" parser.separator "Common options:" # No argument, shows at tail. This will print an options summary. # Try it and see! parser.on_tail("-h", "--help", "Show this message") do puts parser exit end # Another typical switch to print the version. parser.on_tail("--version", "Show version") do puts Version exit end end def perform_inplace_option(parser) # Specifies an optional option argument parser.on("-i", "--inplace [EXTENSION]", "Edit ARGV files in place", "(make backup if EXTENSION supplied)") do |ext| self.inplace = true self.extension = ext || '' self.extension.sub!(/\A\.?(?=.)/, ".") # Ensure extension begins with dot. end end def delay_execution_option(parser) # Cast 'delay' argument to a Float. parser.on("--delay N", Float, "Delay N seconds before executing") do |n| self.delay = n end end def execute_at_time_option(parser) # Cast 'time' argument to a Time object. parser.on("-t", "--time [TIME]", Time, "Begin execution at given time") do |time| self.time = time end end def specify_record_separator_option(parser) # Cast to octal integer. parser.on("-F", "--irs [OCTAL]", OptionParser::OctalInteger, "Specify record separator (default \\0)") do |rs| self.record_separator = rs end end def list_example_option(parser) # List of arguments. parser.on("--list x,y,z", Array, "Example 'list' of arguments") do |list| self.list = list end end def specify_encoding_option(parser) # Keyword completion. We are specifying a specific set of arguments (CODES # and CODE_ALIASES - notice the latter is a Hash), and the user may provide # the shortest unambiguous text. code_list = (CODE_ALIASES.keys + CODES).join(', ') parser.on("--code CODE", CODES, CODE_ALIASES, "Select encoding", "(#{code_list})") do |encoding| self.encoding = encoding end end def optional_option_argument_with_keyword_completion_option(parser) # Optional '--type' option argument with keyword completion. parser.on("--type [TYPE]", [:text, :binary, :auto], "Select transfer type (text, binary, auto)") do |t| self.transfer_type = t end end def boolean_verbose_option(parser) # Boolean switch. parser.on("-v", "--[no-]verbose", "Run verbosely") do |v| self.verbose = v end end end # # Return a structure describing the options. # def parse(args) # The options specified on the command line will be collected in # *options*. @options = ScriptOptions.new @args = OptionParser.new do |parser| @options.define_options(parser) parser.parse!(args) end @options end attr_reader :parser, :options end # class OptparseExample example = OptparseExample.new options = example.parse(ARGV) pp options # example.options pp ARGV
Shell Completion For modern shells (e.g. bash, zsh, etc.), you can use shell completion for command line options.
The above examples should be enough to learn how to use this class. If you have any questions, file a ticket at bugs.ruby-lang.org.
A class that provides two-phase lock with a counter. See Sync_m for details.
Raised when attempting to divide an integer by 0.
42 / 0 #=> ZeroDivisionError: divided by 0
Note that only division by an exact 0 will raise the exception:
42 / 0.0 #=> Float::INFINITY 42 / -0.0 #=> -Float::INFINITY 0 / 0.0 #=> NaN
The Comparable mixin is used by classes whose objects may be ordered. The class must define the <=> operator, which compares the receiver against another object, returning -1, 0, or +1 depending on whether the receiver is less than, equal to, or greater than the other object. If the other object is not comparable then the <=> operator should return nil. Comparable uses <=> to implement the conventional comparison operators (<, <=, ==, >=, and >) and the method between?.
class SizeMatters include Comparable attr :str def <=>(other) str.size <=> other.str.size end def initialize(str) @str = str end def inspect @str end end s1 = SizeMatters.new("Z") s2 = SizeMatters.new("YY") s3 = SizeMatters.new("XXX") s4 = SizeMatters.new("WWWW") s5 = SizeMatters.new("VVVVV") s1 < s2 #=> true s4.between?(s1, s3) #=> false s4.between?(s3, s5) #=> true [ s3, s2, s5, s4, s1 ].sort #=> [Z, YY, XXX, WWWW, VVVVV]