Ruby: How to convert a string to boolean

Question

I have a value that will be one of four things: boolean true, boolean false, the string \"true\", or the string \"false\". I want to convert the string to a boolean if it i

Answer 1

In a rails 5.1 app, I use this core extension built on top of ActiveRecord::Type::Boolean. It is working perfectly for me when I deserialize boolean from JSON string.

https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveModel/Type/Boolean.html

# app/lib/core_extensions/string.rb
module CoreExtensions
  module String
    def to_bool
      ActiveRecord::Type::Boolean.new.deserialize(downcase.strip)
    end
  end
end

initialize core extensions

# config/initializers/core_extensions.rb
String.include CoreExtensions::String

rspec

# spec/lib/core_extensions/string_spec.rb
describe CoreExtensions::String do
  describe "#to_bool" do
    %w[0 f F false FALSE False off OFF Off].each do |falsey_string|
      it "converts #{falsey_string} to false" do
        expect(falsey_string.to_bool).to eq(false)
      end
    end
  end
end