Difference between “and” and && in Ruby?

Question

What is the difference between the && and and operators in Ruby?

Answer 1

The practical difference is binding strength, which can lead to peculiar behavior if you're not prepared for it:

foo = :foo
bar = nil

a = foo and bar
# => nil
a
# => :foo

a = foo && bar
# => nil
a
# => nil

a = (foo and bar)
# => nil
a
# => nil

(a = foo) && bar
# => nil
a
# => :foo

The same thing works for || and or.

Answer 2

and is the same as && but with lower precedence. They both use short-circuit evaluation.

WARNING: and even has lower precedence than = so you'll usually want to avoid and. An example when and should be used can be found in the Rails Guide under "Avoiding Double Render Errors".

Answer 3

and has lower precedence, mostly we use it as a control-flow modifier such as if:

next if widget = widgets.pop

becomes

widget = widgets.pop and next

For or:

raise "Not ready!" unless ready_to_rock?

becomes

ready_to_rock? or raise "Not ready!"

I prefer to use if but not and, because if is more intelligible, so I just ignore and and or.

Refer to "Using “and” and “or” in Ruby" for more information.

Answer 4

and has lower precedence than &&.

But for an unassuming user, problems might occur if it is used along with other operators whose precedence are in between, for example, the assignment operator:

def happy?() true; end
def know_it?() true; end

todo = happy? && know_it? ? "Clap your hands" : "Do Nothing"

todo
# => "Clap your hands"

todo = happy? and know_it? ? "Clap your hands" : "Do Nothing"

todo
# => true

Answer 5

I don't know if this is Ruby intention or if this is a bug but try this code below. This code was run on Ruby version 2.5.1 and was on a Linux system.

puts 1 > -1 and 257 < 256
# => false

puts 1 > -1 && 257 < 256
# => true

Answer 6

The Ruby Style Guide says it better than I could:

Use &&/|| for boolean expressions, and/or for control flow. (Rule of thumb: If you have to use outer parentheses, you are using the wrong operators.)

# boolean expression
if some_condition && some_other_condition
  do_something
end

# control flow
document.saved? or document.save!