Question

A simple issue, but can’t figure out how to solve it, lacking knowledge in Ruby language:

class Game
  def initialize
    get_command
  end
  def get_command
    command = gets
    puts command                # => POSITION
    puts command != "POSITION"  # => true
    if command != "POSITION"
      command = get_command 
    else  
      return true
    end
  end
end

a = Game.new

Whenever I run an application and type POSITION it always gets the true comparing to "POSITION" can anyone explain why?

Thanks

Answer 1

Because what you’re actually getting is “POSITION\n”. You can see this in irb:

1.9.3p194 :061 > command = gets
POSITION
 => "POSITION\n"

You should strip the command before doing comparisons:

command = gets.strip

or

command = gets.chomp

This will strip whitespace (including newlines) off of the input.