Ruby Pocket Reference

Glossary

accessor

A method for accessing data in a class that is usually inaccessible otherwise. Also called getter and setter methods.

Ajax

Originally an abbreviation for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. A web design technique that uses XMLHttpRequest to load data (often small bits of data) onto a web page without requiring the entire page to be refreshed from the server.

aliasing

Using the Ruby keyword alias, you can alias a method, operator, or global constant by specifying an old and a new name.

ARGF

An I/O-like stream that allows access to a virtual concatenation of all files provided on the command line, or standard input if no files are provided.

ARGV

An array that contains all of the command-line arguments passed to a program.

argument

Variables passed to a method. In the method call hello ( name ), the variable name is an argument. See method.

array

A data structure containing an ordered list of elements—any Ruby object—starting with an index of 0. Compare with hash.

ASCII

Abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is a character set representing 128 letters, numbers, symbols, and special codes, in the range 0-127. Each character can be represented by an 8-bit byte (octet). Ruby default. Set with $KCODE = 'a'. Compare with UTF-8.

block

A nameless function, always associated with a method call, contained in a pair of braces ({}) or do/end.

block comment

See comment.

C extensions

Ruby is written in the C programming language. You can extend Ruby with C code, perhaps ...