Begin/rescue/end blocks in Ruby - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Handling Errors with Begin/Rescue/End Blocks in Ruby

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are writing a small program that divides numbers. Sometimes, the user might enter zero as the divisor, which causes an error. We want to handle this error gracefully so the program doesn't crash.

🎯 Goal: You will build a Ruby program that safely divides two numbers using begin, rescue, and end blocks to catch division errors and print a friendly message.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create two variables with exact values for dividend and divisor

Create a variable to hold the result initialized to nil

Use a begin/rescue/end block to perform division and catch ZeroDivisionError

Print the result or an error message

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Handling errors like division by zero is common in programs that do math or process user input. This prevents crashes and improves user experience.

💼 Career

Understanding error handling with begin/rescue/end blocks is essential for writing robust Ruby applications, a key skill for Ruby developers.

1

Set up dividend and divisor variables

Create two variables called dividend and divisor with the exact values 10 and 0 respectively.

Ruby

# Create variables dividend and divisor with values 10 and 0
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use simple assignment like dividend = 10 and divisor = 0.

2

Create a result variable

Create a variable called result and set it to nil.

Ruby

dividend = 10
divisor = 0
# Create a variable result and set it to nil
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use result = nil to start with no value.

3

Use begin/rescue/end to divide safely

Write a begin block where you set result to dividend / divisor. Add a rescue ZeroDivisionError block that sets result to the string "Cannot divide by zero". Close the block with end.

Ruby

dividend = 10
divisor = 0
result = nil
# Use begin/rescue/end to divide dividend by divisor safely
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use begin and end to wrap the division. Rescue ZeroDivisionError to handle division by zero.

4

Print the result

Write a puts statement to print the value of result.

Ruby

dividend = 10
divisor = 0
result = nil

begin
  result = dividend / divisor
rescue ZeroDivisionError
  result = "Cannot divide by zero"
end
# Print the result
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use puts result to show the output.