Why is 032 different than 32 in Ruby?

Question

I have noticed Ruby behaves differently when working with 032 and 32. I once got syntax errors for having 032 instead of just 32 in my code. Can someone explain this to me?

Answer 1

If you start a number with 0 (zero), ruby treats it as an octal, so you normally don't want the zero. You'll have to be more specific about the syntax error.