From: William James <w_a_x_man@...>
Date: 2009-01-17T15:08:59+09:00
Subject: Re: First bit of hacked-together code, and not sure where I've gone wrong

alex.m.mcpherson@gmail.com wrote:

> Hi there, this is my first program in any programming language, and
> I'm not quite sure how to help myself learn yet, so here is my mal-
> formed code:
> 
> sum = 0
> print "Type the number to add up until: "
> gets
> chomp
> 
> for value in 1..#{$_}
> 	sum = sum + value
> end
> puts sum
> 
> The error says that Ruby needs to chomp a string,

Really?

Type the number to add up until: 2
try2.rb:7:in `+': nil can't be coerced into Fixnum (TypeError)

It says nothing about a string or chomping.

>                                                   but in just the
> previous example in the book, chomp was used on a number. What
> (presumably) simple fix will take care of this?

Change a line to:

for value in 1..$_.to_i


Here's how I would write it:

sum = 0
print "Type the number to add up until: "
top = gets.strip.to_i

(1 .. top).each{|value|
  sum += value
}

p sum