Ruby: Merging variables in to a string

Question

I\'m looking for a better way to merge variables into a string, in Ruby.

For example if the string is something like:

\"The animal action<

Answer 1

I would use the #{} constructor, as stated by the other answers. I also want to point out there is a real subtlety here to watch out for here:

2.0.0p247 :001 > first_name = 'jim'
 => "jim" 
2.0.0p247 :002 > second_name = 'bob'
 => "bob" 
2.0.0p247 :003 > full_name = '#{first_name} #{second_name}'
 => "\#{first_name} \#{second_name}" # not what we expected, expected "jim bob"
2.0.0p247 :004 > full_name = "#{first_name} #{second_name}"
 => "jim bob" #correct, what we expected

While strings can be created with single quotes (as demonstrated by the first_name and last_name variables, the #{} constructor can only be used in strings with double quotes.