The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming, Second Edition

Chapter 15. Ruby and Data Formats

“Your information, sir,” the Librarian says.

“Are you smart enough to tie that information into YOU ARE HERE?”

Hiro says.

“I’ll see what I can do, sir. The formats appear to be reconcilable.”

—Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

This is something of a “catch-all” chapter. Much of this material could have been placed elsewhere. The material is not all of equal importance or difficulty, but it is all important and needs to be covered somewhere.

It is a fact of life in computing that when information becomes complex enough, it always evolves its own “minilanguage” in which that information is best expressed. More often, it evolves multiple such minilanguages. We call these file formats or data formats.

Any of us could ...