From: "yermej@..." <yermej@...>
Date: 2007-10-12T14:45:10+09:00
Subject: Re: continuous input until semicolon reached

On Oct 12, 12:13 am, Michael Linfield <globyy3...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Shuaib Zahda wrote:
> > Hello
>
> > I am doing a program in which I want to allow my user to keep keying in
> > until they put semicolon then the prompt will process the data. It is
> > something like mysql way. for example
>
> > mysql> select
> >> * from
> >> user;
>
> > I want to have something like this.
>
> while gets.chomp != ";"
>   #code here

I don't think this does what you think it does. String#chomp takes a
character as its argument, with '\n' being the default. The final
character of the String is removed iff that character is the same as
the argument character. String#chomp then returns whatever remains of
the calling String, not the removed character.

Instead, try

all_input = ""
while line = gets
  line.chomp!
  next if line.nil?
  all_input << line
  break if line[-1].chr == ';'
end
puts "got: #{all_input}"

> > the other question, how can I read the last char as char in a string
> > because it keeps returning the ASCII value
>
> Sorry but i dont quite understand your 2nd question :(  Maybe elaborate
> a little?

I think the second question refers to the fact that
"hello"[0] => 104

when
"hello"[0].chr => "h"
is the desired behavior.