Programming Ruby 3.3

Operator Expressions

Ruby has the basic set of operators (+, -, *, /, and so on) as well as a few surprises. A complete list of the operators, and their precedences, is given in Table 19, ​Ruby operators (high to low precedence)​.

In Ruby, many binary operators are implemented as method calls. For example, when you write a * b + c, you’re actually asking the object referenced by a to execute the method *, passing in the parameter b. You then ask the object that results from that calculation to execute the + method, passing c as a parameter. This is the same as writing the following (perfectly valid) Ruby:

a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
a * b + c     # => 5
(a.*(b)).+(c) # => 5

Because everything is an object and because you can redefine instance ...