Getting input from User in Ruby language

Sometimes during the program you want ask the user to interact with the program, like asking their name or other details.

This can be achieved by using the Ruby gets method which may be considered the opposite of puts which will print the output to standard output device, i.e., the terminal.

In Ruby, we can get user input like this:

puts "Enter your name: "
name = gets.chomp
puts "Hello #{name}, how are you?"

Running this code, I would see this:

Enter your name:
RubyGuru
Hello, RubyGuru, how are you?

puts "Enter your name: "
name = gets
puts "Hello #{name}, how are you?"

Without the chomp, it will show the “enter” at the place that I pressed it.

I will run the code above, and we can see:

Enter your name:
RubyGuru
Hello, RubyGuru
, how are you?

Extended example

In the following example, I have extended the use of gets to accept other details of person and transforming the data into appropriate variables.

print "Enter your name: "
name = gets.chomp
print "Enter your age: "
age = gets.to_i
print "Enter your address: "
address = gets.chomp

puts "Hello, #{name}, how are you?"
puts "If I am right, your age is '#{age}'."
puts "And, your address is '#{address}', right?"

When I run the above program:

Enter your name: foo
Enter your age: 10
Enter your address: barpak, gorkha, Nepal
Hello, foo, how are you?
If I am right, your age is '10'.
And, your address is 'barpak, gorkha, Nepal', right?

NOTE

• to_i is used to convert the numeric string to Integer.
• print is used to ask for the information because puts will add new line character and give a feeling that you are entering your data on another line.

Calculator

Let’s build a small calculator program in Ruby. Here, we ask the user for two numbers and then print the result of addition of them.

print "Enter first number: "
number1 = gets.to_f

print "Enter second number: "
number2 = gets.to_f

puts "#{number1} + #{number2} = #{number1 + number2}"

Output

Enter first number: 5
Enter second number: 15
5.0 + 15.0 = 20.0