Type Conversion

Type Conversion

Ruby provides to_i, to_f, to_s, and to_a methods on many types for converting between them. to_i on a non-numeric string returns 0 rather than raising an error, which can hide input mistakes if you're not careful. Integer() and Float() (capitalized, used as functions) are stricter alternatives that raise an error on invalid input.

Warning: "abc".to_i returns 0 silently instead of raising an error -- use Integer("abc") if you want invalid input to raise instead.

Example: Type Conversion

text = "42"
converted = text.to_i

puts converted.class
puts converted + 8

puts "abc".to_i    # silently becomes 0

begin
  Integer("abc")
rescue ArgumentError => e
  puts "Integer() raised: #{e.message}"
end