CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
Kate Hellmann
Kate Hellmann

Reputation: 1

How do I add strings together

The code below outputs 333 instead of 9.

How can I change it to print the sum calculation instead of the character concatenation?

puts 'What is your first name?'
first = gets.chomp
puts 'What is your middle name?'
middle = gets.chomp
puts 'What is your last name?'
last = gets.chomp
var1 = first.length.to_s
var2 = middle.length.to_s
var3 = last.length.to_s
puts 'Did you know there are '  + var1 + var2 + var3 + ' characters in your name, ' + first + ' ' +  middle + ' ' + last

Upvotes: 0

Views: 97

Answers (3)

Sagar Pandya
Sagar Pandya

Reputation: 9497

This will work:

puts 'What is your first name?'
first = gets.chomp

puts 'What is your middle name?'
middle = gets.chomp

puts 'What is your last name?'
last = gets.chomp

var1 = first.length
var2 = middle.length
var3 = last.length

puts "Did you know there are #{var1 + var2 + var3} characters in your name"

Notes: To add together the vars you shouldn't convert to strings. String-interpolation requires double-quotes. Good spacing helps readability big time.

Example:

$ What is your first name?
#James
$ What is your middle name?
#Tiberius
$ What is your last name?
#Kirk 
#Did you know there are 17 characters in your name

Upvotes: 1

the Tin Man
the Tin Man

Reputation: 160551

The problem is that Ruby understands the difference between a string and an integer/number:

'c'.class  # => String
1.class # => Fixnum

You have to tell Ruby to convert from the one to the other if you want to add numbers:

'1' + '2' # => "12"
1 + 2  # => 3

To convert a String value to a number we use to_i:

'1'.to_i + '2'.to_i # => 3

You already know that chomp is useful to remove trailing new-lines:

"a\n" # => "a\n"
"a\n".chomp # => "a"

but when converting to a number it's not necessary. to_i will convert the leading digits into a number and stop at the first non-digit:

"1\n".chomp.to_i # => 1
"1\n".to_i # => 1

and:

"12".to_i # => 12
"1 2".to_i # => 1

so use the easier:

"1\n".to_i # => 1

Note: to_i can do more than just convert from decimal (base 10) representation of numbers, it can do other bases:

"10000".to_i(2) # => 16
"20".to_i(8) # => 16
"10".to_i(16) # => 16

but that's something to grow into.

Upvotes: 5

Sid
Sid

Reputation: 408

You are first converting the length of names (integer) into strings and then trying to add them to another string. That's why the length shows up as 333. Instead of converting the length into strings, leave them as is (remove .to_s). And then perform an add for the numbers and finally convert to string.

var1 = first.length
var2 = middle.length
var3 = last.length

puts 'Did you know there are '  + (var1 + var2 + var3).to_s + ' characters in your name, ' + first + ' ' +  middle + ' ' + last

Upvotes: 0

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