rubytarball.tar.gz

Do you want to be an interpreted language geek? Are you tired of getting entangled in the dense syntaxes? Does it irritate you to compile your code to machine language first? Are you looking for an easy-to-use scripting language? Well, Ruby is the best pick for you then!

Ruby is a smart, easy-to-use, functional, Object-Oriented programming language, which comes as a wondrous mix of Perl's scripting power, Pythonic capabilities and much more! As Matsumoto, creator of Ruby, implies: "I hope to see Ruby help every programmer in the world to be productive, and to enjoy programming, and to be happy. That is the primary purpose of Ruby language."

This introductory course will be providing you with hands-on practice with the support of a bunch of interactive illustrations, exercises and the integral topics of variables, built-in classes, objects, conditionals, blocks and much more!

Cool, right? Ready to dive into one of the most influential and demanding third generation programming language? Let's tune in!

Ruby: An Amateur's Pitch

# Bang Methods

All of the examples that we've discussed before have one thing in common:

They are *questions* and do not modify the object they are called on.
 
For example:

```ruby
name = "Ruby Monstas"
puts name.downcase
puts name
```

This will output:

```ruby
ruby monstas
Ruby Monstas
```



name = "Ruby Monstas"
puts name.downcase
puts name

As you can see the method `downcase` has returned a new String, which is the
lowercase version of the String that the method is being called on. When we
output the original String on the next line, we can then see that it's still
the same: The method `downcase` does not modify the String.

$$$$
## Methods ending with an `!`:
However, there also are variants of some of these methods, which end in an
exclamation mark `!`. These methods are called **"bang methods"**, and they usually
modify the object that they're being called on.

><span>💡</span>
>
>Bang methods end with an exclamation mark, and often modify the object they are called on.


For example, next to the method `downcase` Strings also have a method `downcase!`.

Let's try that:

```ruby
name = "Ruby Monstas"
puts name.downcase!
puts name
```

This will output:

```ruby
ruby monstas
ruby monstas
```




This lesson gives an introduction to bang methods in Ruby.

Bangs

Bang Methods