Question

Does giving a

idea = gets.reverse
print idea

If user inputted ‘dog’ it would come out ‘dog’

But if you did this code…

idea = gets.reverse!
print idea

Then the string variable being returned would be ‘god’, right?

Answer 1

Why not try it:

irb(main):001:0> idea = gets.reverse
dog
=> "\ngod"
irb(main):002:0> idea = gets.reverse!
dog
=> "\ngod"

Both will return the reversed string. However:

irb(main):010:0> idea = gets
dog
=> "dog\n"
irb(main):011:0> idea.reverse
=> "\ngod"
irb(main):012:0> idea
=> "dog\n"
irb(main):013:0> idea.reverse!
=> "\ngod"
irb(main):014:0> idea
=> "\ngod"

reverse! will modify the current string while reverse will return a new one.