=~?

Ruby
1

I saw

word =~/^qu/

in a program, what does it do:?

2

might as well show the whole method

def first_vowel(word)
if word =~/^qu/
2
else
word.gsub(/[aeiou].*$/, ‘’).size
end
end

Any ideas as I’m lost om what its even doling?

3

~= is the ruby match operator.
It matches a string to a regular expression.

e.g.

'Pullo' =~ /o/
# => 4

If there is no match, it will return nil.

As for the method you posted:

def first_vowel(word)
  if word =~/^qu/
    2
  else
    word.gsub(/[aeiou].*$/, '').size
  end
end

it checks to see if the word it receives as an argument starts with a “qu”.
If so, it returns 2

Otherwise it replaces everything after (and including) the occurrence of the first vowel, then returns the size of what’s left.

4

thanks

5

This is the best and only answer.
Closing the thread.