Why does ruby irb becomes unusable if array not properly defined [closed]

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If an array is improperly defined, it seems to render irb unusable. Or does it?

See example below:

irb(main):003:0> set = ['a]
irb(main):004:1'
irb(main):005:1' g
irb(main):006:1' q
irb(main):007:1' '
irb(main):008:1> set
irb(main):009:1> puts 'hello'
irb(main):010:1>
irb(main):011:1*
irb(main):012:1* '
irb(main):013:1' '
irb(main):014:1> '
irb(main):015:1' '
irb(main):016:1> "
irb(main):017:1" "
irb(main):018:1> puts "hello"
irb(main):019:1> ^C
irb(main):019:0>
irb(main):020:0*
irb(main):021:0* ^C
irb(main):021:0> exit

Answer 1

When you didn't close your single-quoted string, irb started treating everything following (including the close-array ]) as part of that string.

To get back to a prompt that works, you either need to

1. Close the string and the array - that is, match the ' and then the ]; or
2. Press Ctrl-C, which drops you out of your context

See that the last digit in the prompt changes to 1 after your malformed string, and back to 0 after Ctrl-C? That's the nesting depth. If it's at 0, you're back in the main context of itb.

Answer 2

This happens because you forgot the first quote in the beginning. It will add that quote to the next input. Press ctrl-C and try again. That should fix it.

If that doesn't help, try ctrl-D this will send an EOF to irb. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-of-file