Question

When I make a new array/hash in irb, it prints out a nice format to show the structure, ex.

["value1", "value2", "value3"]
{"key1" => "value1"}

… but when I try to print out my variables using puts, I get them collapsed:

value1
value2
value3
key1
value1

I gather that puts is not the right command for what I want, but what is? I want to be able to view my variables in irb in the first format, not the second.

Answer 1

You can either use the inspect method:

a=["value1", "value2", "value3"]
puts a.inspect

Or, even better, use the pp (pretty print) lib:

require 'pp'
a=["value1", "value2", "value3"]
pp a