How to work with leading zeros in integers

Question

What is the proper way to deal with leading zeros in Ruby?

0112.to_s
 => \"74\"
0112.to_i
 => 74

Why is it converting 0112

Answer 1

A numeric literal that starts with 0 is an octal representation, except the literals that start with 0x which represent hexadecimal numbers or 0b which represent binary numbers.

1 * 8**2 + 1 * 8**1 + 2 * 8**0 == 74

To convert it to 0112, use String#% or Kernel#sprintf with an appropriate format string:

'0%o' % 0112  # 0: leading zero, %o: represent as an octal
# => "0112"