Syntax rules for using hashes.

Syntax rules for using hashes.

Syntax rules for manipulating arrays.

Syntax rules for manipulating arrays.

Syntax rules for accessing elements of an array.

Syntax rules for creating and initializing arrays in Ruby. Examples and discussion of Array.new; array literals; %w and %W for arrays of strings; initializing an array with the values of another array

Brief introduction to Ranges in Ruby with syntax for defining inclusive and exclusive ranges using the two types of Range operators; the membership operator (===), or case equality operator, and an example of a range being used in a case statement; iterating over a range using the each and step methods.

Mutability in Strings and Constants; the freeze method for creating immutable objects; the frozen? method; the dup method for making a mutable copy of a frozen object.

Syntax rules for Symbols in Ruby and consideration of potential performance issues when deciding between Strings and Symbols. Also discussed: the symbol table; differences in memory persistence between strings and symbols; symbol lookup; benchmarking symbol vs string performance; functional distinctions between symbols and strings

String Delimiters in Ruby including a discussion of how escaped characters are treated differently in single vs double-quoted strings; using %q and %Q for nonstandard delimiters; here documents; and, string interpolation.