Open a command line window and navigate to your Ruby scripts directory using the cd command. Once there, you can list files, using the dir command on Windows or the ls command on Linux or OS X. To run the test.rb Ruby script, run the command ruby test.rb. The script should ask you for your name and greet you.
to run them. Open your text editor and save the following program as test.rb.#!/usr/bin/env ruby
print "What is your name? "
name = gets.chomp
puts "Hello #{name}!"
Alternatively, you can configure your script to run without using the Ruby command. On Windows, the one-click installer already set up a file association with the .rb file extension. Simply running the command test.rb will run the script. In Linux and OS X for scripts to run automatically two things must be in place: a "shebang" line and the file being marked as executable.
The shebang line is already done for you; it's the first line in the script starting with #!. This tells the shell what type of file this is. In this case it's a Ruby file to be executed with the Ruby interpreter. To mark the file as executable, run the command chmod +x test.rb. This will set a file permission bit indicating that the file is a program and that it can be run. Now, to run the program simply enter the command ./test.rb.
Whether you invoke the Ruby interpreter manually with the Ruby command or run the Ruby script directly is up to you. Functionally, they are the same thing. Use whichever method you feel most comfortable with.
