Ruby: My Gem

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Ruby symbols & strings

Strings are used for the Data while the Symbols are used as Identifiers.

Symbols

One of the most common uses of the symbols is to represent methods and instance variable names.

:symbol_name #syntax

hash = {a: 1, b: 2, c: 3} #can be used as hash keys

A symbol is immutable, increases the speed, and has unique object id.. (reference)

Symbols are not a pointer to values, they are values themselves

to_sym (Convert to a symbol)

to_s (Convert to a string)