cases and switches in ruby

One of the common questions that we get about people coming from other programing languages is with the way switch cases work in ruby.

The case..switch works like a ‘===’ operator and not like a ‘==’ operator. Here are a few examples of how it work. Here are a few examples of how it works.

Syntax:

case value_returning_argument
when case_1
  case_statement_list_1
when case_2
  case_statement_2
else
  case_statement_else
end

Example 1:

A simple example would be:

puts "Enter some value: "
some_value = gets.chomp

case some_string
when 'some', 'other'
  puts 'Entered some other value'
when 'no'
  puts 'Entered no value'
else
  puts 'Why did you enter that value??'
end

Example 2:

Here’s an example that accepts regular expression

print "Enter a value: "
some_string = gets.chomp
string_type = case
  when some_value.match(/^\d+$/)
    'Number'
  when some_value.match(/^[a-zA-Z]+$/)
    'String without Numbers'
  else
    'Some text'
  end

Example 3:

Here’s an example that works with a range

case some_string
when 1..5
  puts "Between 1 and 5"
when 6..8
  puts "Between 6 and 8"
when 9
  puts "Entered 9"
end

Example 4:

The parameter for case is optional

case
when some_string=='hi'
  puts "you just said hi"
when some_string=='there'
  puts "you just said there"
else
  puts "whatever..!"
end

Any questions on this, please feel free to ask. We’re here to help…