Ruby in a Nutshell

Changes from 1.6.5 to 1.7.1

The following information details the changes that are occurring in development versions 1.7.1 and 1.8 (though 1.8 will have additional changes as well):

• Multiple assignment behavior is clarified.

• Syntax enhanced to interpret argument parentheses to allow p (”xx"*2).to_i.

• break and next extended to take an optional expression, which is used as a return value of the iterating method and yield, respectively.

• The following new methods (or modifications to methods) have been added:

  Array#fetch

  Array#insert

  Enumerable#all?

  Enumerable#any?

  Enumerable#inject

  Enumerable#sort_by

  File#fnmatch

  MatchData#to_ary

  Method#==

  Module#include?

  Module#included

  Module#method_removed

  Module#method_undefined

  Object#singleton_method_removed

  Object#singleton_method_undefined

  Proc#==

  Proc#yield

  Range#to_ary

  Range#step

  Regexp#options

  String#casecmp

  String#insert

  Symbol#intern

  Symbol::all_symbols

  SystemExit#status

  File::lchmod

  File::lchown

  IO::for_fd

  IO::read

  Math::acos

  Math::asin

  Math::atan

  Math::cosh

  Math::hypot

  Math::sinh

  Math::tanh

  Process::times

  Process::waitall

  SystemCallError::===

• String#eql? is now always case-sensitive.

• Dir::chdir extended to take a block.

• NoMethodError raised for undefined method.

• Interrupt is a subclass of SignalException (it was a subclass of Exception in 1.6 and prior).

• $? now gives Process::Status along with Process::wait2, Process::waitpid2.

• Regexp.last_match(n) extended to take an optional argument.

• The Digest module has been added as a replacement for the md5 and sha1 modules.

• Line-range ...