From Ruby to Elixir

Wrapping Up

Pattern matching is one of the standout features of Elixir. You’ll frequently use pattern matching, so it’s important to get comfortable with it. The most basic form of pattern matching is the match operator =. Use the match operator to break values apart or for simple variable assignment. Pattern matching works with any term in Elixir, so you can use it for lists, maps, or any other data type.

Pattern matching is crucial in most of Elixir’s control flow structures. case is the most common and foundational control flow structure. Use it to check a term against a number of candidate patterns. Use with to capture the successful outcome of a series of operations or to handle an error if something goes wrong. Finally, use cond when you ...