Write long strings with wiggly HEREDOCs

There’s multiple ways to generate String literals in Ruby. If you are creating long, or multi-line, strings, the HEREDOC (or ‘Here document’) is your friend.

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Details of the many ways to create String literals can be found in Ruby’s documentation for Strings.

Instead of…

…running strings over multiple lines and including newline characters:

hamilton = "I am not throwing away my shot!\n" \
           "I am not throwing away my shot!\n" \
           "Hey yo, I’m just like my country\n" \
           "I’m young, scrappy and hungry\n" \
           "And I’m not throwing away my shot!"

burr = "Geniuses, lower your voices"
burr += "You keep out of trouble and you double your choices\n"
burr += "I’m with you, but the situation is fraught\n"
burr += "You’ve got to be carefully taught:\n"
burr += "If you talk, you’re gonna get shot!\n"

Use…

… a HEREDOC.

angelica = <<ANGELICA
I’m a girl in a world in which
My only job is to marry rich
My father has no sons so I’m the one
Who has to social climb for one
ANGELICA

… or even better a ‘wiggly’ HEREDOC (since Ruby 2.3).

angelica = <<~ANGELICA
  So I’m the oldest and the wittiest and the gossip in
  New York #{city} is insidious
  And Alexander is penniless
  Ha! That doesn’t mean I want him any less
ANGELICA

But why?

For multi-line strings, the HEREDOC is absolutely the right choice. You get the flexibility to edit your text without having to worry about quotes (either single or double) on every line.

You can interpolate variables into your strings just like you can with quoted syntax.

With the “wiggly” variant of the HEREDOC, if there is any spacing between the beginning of the first line and the first word in the first line, that amount spacing of spacing is removed from every line. The following two statements produce the same output:

throwing_away = <<THROW
I’m not throwing away
My shot
THROW
#=> "I’m not throwing away\nMy shot"

throwing_away_2 = <<~THROW
  I’m not throwing away
  My shot
THROW
#=> "I’m not throwing away\nMy shot"

Why not?

If you’re using multi-line strings for any reason, there’s no reason you wouldn’t use the HEREDOC. Stick with the wiggly.

Last updated on December 2nd, 2018