contents/ruby-compendium/book/core-stdlib.html
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----- title: "Ruby Compendium - The Core and the Standard Library" content-type: page ----- <nav class="navigation"><a href="/ruby-compendium/book/syntax.html">← Syntax</a> | <a href="/ruby-compendium/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/ruby-compendium/book/features.html">Advanced Language Features →</a></nav> <p>By default, Ruby always loads its core classes and modules when a script is executed. This means that in all Ruby programs you can always instantiate core objects like:</p> <ul> <li>Numbers (integers, floats)</li> <li>Strings</li> <li>Arrays</li> <li>Hashes</li> <li>Files</li> <li>Regular expressions</li> <li>Symbols</li> <li>Threads</li> <li>Times and dates</li> <li>…and many more.</li> </ul> <p>Most likely, this is not going to be enough. That’s when the Standard Library comes into play: it’s a large collection of internal libraries that ships with every Ruby implementations. There are libraries to connect to the Internet, to read/write to various file formats such as <span class="caps">CSV</span> or <span class="caps">YAML</span>, to work with files and paths, access system features, and so on.</p> <p>Unlike core classes, standard libraries must be required specifically if needed, before they can be used.</p> <aside class="box"> <div class="box-title">If you want to know more...</div> <p>On core libraries and the Standard Library, checkout the official documentation:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/">Core Reference</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/">Standard Library Reference</a></li> </ul> <p>Overwhelmed? Don’t know where to start? Familiarize yourself with the <a href="http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Enumerable.html">Enumerable</a> module; you won’t regret it!</p> </aside> <nav class="navigation"><a href="/ruby-compendium/book/syntax.html">← Syntax</a> | <a href="/ruby-compendium/book/index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="/ruby-compendium/book/features.html">Advanced Language Features →</a></nav> |