Question

I know this may seem like a really simple question, but it really bothers me that my puts keep generating “=> nil” and I scoured for an answer but could not find one. Thanks.

puts ‘blink ‘ *4
blink blink blink blink
=> nil

Answer 1

Because that is the return value of puts:

puts(obj, …) → nil

Writes the given objects to ios as with IO#print.
Writes a record separator (typically a newline) after any that do not
already end with a newline sequence. If called with an array argument,
writes each element on a new line. If called without arguments,
outputs a single record separator.

source: http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/IO.html#method-i-puts

Also, I assume this is just in irb? because calling puts doesn’t display its return value in normal applications.