From: "Wesley J. Landaker" <wjl@...>
Date: 2002-11-20T05:28:44+09:00
Subject: Re: difference between 'and' and '&&'

Apparently, Volkmann, Mark recently wrote:
> I thought the only difference between these was precedence, but I'm
> seeing another difference.
>
> a = 'test'
> b = nil
> haveBoth = a and b
> # haveBoth is now equal to 'test'
>
> haveBoth = a && b
> # haveBoth is now equal to nil
>
> Is this the expected behavior?
>
> What I want to do is verify that two strings are not nil.
> It looks like I have to use "&&" instead of "and" to do that.

This is still the precedence difference: 'and' is lower than '=':

Add some parenthesis and you get what you want:

irb(main):001:0> a = 'test'
"test"
irb(main):002:0> b = nil
nil
irb(main):003:0> haveBoth = a and b
nil
irb(main):004:0> haveBoth
"test"
irb(main):005:0> haveBoth = (a and b)
nil
irb(main):006:0> haveBoth
nil