How to convert a string or integer to binary in Ruby?

Question

How do you create integers 0..9 and math operators + - * / in to binary strings. For example:

 0 = 0000,
 1 = 0001, 
 ...
 9 = 1001

Is the

Answer 1

If you're only working with the single digits 0-9, it's likely faster to build a lookup table so you don't have to call the conversion functions every time.

lookup_table = Hash.new
(0..9).each {|x|
    lookup_table[x] = x.to_s(2)
    lookup_table[x.to_s] = x.to_s(2)
}
lookup_table[5]
=> "101"
lookup_table["8"]
=> "1000"

Indexing into this hash table using either the integer or string representation of a number will yield its binary representation as a string.

If you require the binary strings to be a certain number of digits long (keep leading zeroes), then change x.to_s(2) to sprintf "%04b", x (where 4 is the minimum number of digits to use).