Ruby: create a String from bytes

Question

I would like to build a string from a byte value.

I currently use:

str = \" \"
str[0] = byte

This seems to work fine but I find it

Answer 1

There is a much simpler approach than any of the above: Array#pack:

>> [65,66,67,68,69].pack('c*')
=>  "ABCDE"

I believe pack is implemented in c in matz ruby, so it also will be considerably faster with very large arrays.

Also, pack can correctly handle UTF-8 using the 'U*' template.