until loop is getting stuck; acting strangely?

Question

I have the loop below and its behavior seems strange to me.

It's part of a BlackJack game and it is asking for the user to input a bet. If the bet is more than the amount of money the user has then it loops back around.

c is equal to 500 here:

b = 90000000
until b < c
  puts "You have $" + c.to_s + "."
  puts "How much do you want to bet? "
  b = gets.to_i
  if b < c
    @bet = gets.to_i
  else
    puts "Nice try."
  end
end

I set b to a high number to ensure that the loop is run at least once. When I start the loop and enter numbers higher than the money I have, it does what it's supposed to, and loops asking for a bet. But, when I finally enter a valid amount the loop gets stuck.

Then when I set b to a low enough number so that it skips over the until everything works fine.

Does anyone know why my loop is sticking?

Answer 1

It's not 'sticking', it's waiting for IO.

You have a second call to gets inside your if b < c block. Your loop is executing the final time, you are entering a value < c, your if block is entered, and your program is waiting for you to read more input.

Change your inner if block to

if b < c
  @bet = b
else
  puts "Nice try."
end

and you should be ok.