Comparison operators in Ruby - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

❓ Predict Output

intermediate

Output of chained comparison with integers

What is the output of this Ruby code?

Ruby

result = 3 < 5 && 5 < 7
puts result

A SyntaxError

B true

C false

D nil

💡 Hint

Remember that && checks if both sides are true.

The expression checks if 3 is less than 5 AND 5 is less than 7. Both are true, so the result is true.

❓ Predict Output

intermediate

Output of spaceship operator <=> with strings

What will this Ruby code output?

Ruby

puts 'apple' <=> 'banana'

A -1

B 0

C 1

D nil

💡 Hint

The spaceship operator returns -1 if left is less than right.

Since 'apple' comes before 'banana' alphabetically, the operator returns -1.

❓ Predict Output

advanced

Result of comparing different types with == and eql?

What is the output of this Ruby code?

Ruby

a = 5
b = 5.0
puts a == b
puts a.eql?(b)

A

true
false

B

false
false

C

true
true

D

false
true

💡 Hint

== compares values, eql? compares both value and type.

5 == 5.0 is true because values are equal, but 5.eql?(5.0) is false because types differ (Integer vs Float).

❓ Predict Output

advanced

Output of combined comparison with case statement

What will this Ruby code output?

Ruby

score = 85
case score
when 90..100 then puts 'A'
when 80...90 then puts 'B'
else puts 'F'
end

A SyntaxError

B A

C F

D B

💡 Hint

Check which range includes 85.

85 is in the range 80...90 (80 to 89), so it prints 'B'.

🧠 Conceptual

expert

Behavior of <=> operator with nil values

What error or output results from this Ruby code?

Ruby

puts nil <=> 5

A TypeError

B ArgumentError

C nil

D false

💡 Hint

The spaceship operator returns nil if values are not comparable.

Comparing nil with a number using <=> returns nil because they are not comparable.