Question

This is basically a very noob question about Ruby console (IRB), but I couldn’t find answer anywhere. So. When writing a statement in Ruby console and then in the middle of it pressing Enter, sometimes console expects me to continue the statement and start to look like this:

ruby-1.9.2-p180 :093″>

That ” basically tells (i think) that Ruby expects me to finish the statement on the previous line. However there is no way I can finish it or cancel the statement. Pressing Enter again doesn’t really help, and also Ruby stops computing other statements if I enter some at this point.

So, what is this mode and how to handle it?

Answer 1

It means your quotes are unbalanced; enter a quote.

irb(main):004:0> s="this is
irb(main):005:0" a test"
=> "this is\na test"

You can also hit Ctrl-C <Return>, which will drop you to the root prompt. Ctrl-D will drop you back to the prompt, but the next <Return> will throw an error due to the unterminated quote.

Alternatively, use pry, which will let you use ! to escape back to your top level.