Question about if-statements

Im a newbie to ruby (hehe).
I have a question.
Is there any better way to do this? :

···

---------------
puts "Enter Username"
usr = gets
puts "Enter Password"
usr_pass = gets
User = "user"
Pass = "pass"

if usr > User
  if usr_pass > Pass
  puts "Correct user and pass"
  else
  puts "Correct user"
  puts "Wrong pass"
  end
else
  if usr_pass > Pass
  puts "Correct pass"
  else
  puts "Wrong pass"
  end
  puts "Wrong user"
end

------------------------This is the same but in VB---------
if usr = User and usr_pass = Pass then
print "correct user and password"
else
if usr = User and usr_pass <> Pass then
print "correct user and wrong password"
else
if usr <> User and usr_pass = Pass then
print "correct password and wrong user"
else
if usr <> User and usr_pass <> Pass then
print "wrong password and wrong user"
end if
end if
end if
end if
-----------------------------------------------------

-------And how do i do this in ruby? ------
If usr = User and usr_pass = Pass then
print "Correct User and Pass"
else
print "Wrong User or Pass"
endif

fabsy wrote:

Im a newbie to ruby (hehe).
I have a question.
Is there any better way to do this? :

---------------
puts "Enter Username"
usr = gets
puts "Enter Password"
usr_pass = gets
User = "user"
Pass = "pass"

if usr > User
  if usr_pass > Pass
  puts "Correct user and pass"
  else
  puts "Correct user"
  puts "Wrong pass"
  end
else
  if usr_pass > Pass
  puts "Correct pass"
  else
  puts "Wrong pass"
  end
  puts "Wrong user"
end

------------------------This is the same but in VB---------
if usr = User and usr_pass = Pass then
print "correct user and password"
else
if usr = User and usr_pass <> Pass then
print "correct user and wrong password"
else
if usr <> User and usr_pass = Pass then
print "correct password and wrong user"
else
if usr <> User and usr_pass <> Pass then
print "wrong password and wrong user"
end if
-----------------------------------------------------

-------And how do i do this in ruby? ------
If usr = User and usr_pass = Pass then
print "Correct User and Pass"
else
print "Wrong User or Pass"
endif

Question 1:

   print "enter username: "
   username = gets.chomp # chomp removes the last newline

   print "enter password: "
   password = gets.chomp

   # using constants may not be the best approach...
   Username = "foo"
   Password = "bar"

   raise "incorrect username" unless username == Username
   raise "incorrect password" unless password == Password

   # the user is now authenticated

Question 2:

   if username == Username and password == Password
     # correct
   else
     # incorrect
   end

Cheers,
Daniel

puts "Enter Username"
usr = gets
puts "Enter Password"
usr_pass = gets

if usr > "user" && usr_pass > "pass"
   puts "Login ok"
else
   puts "Wrong credentials"
end

Note: typically you do not report whether the user name or the password was invalid to give attackers as few information as possible.

Btw, why do you compare with greater than and a string?

Kind regards

  robert

···

On 15.08.2006 13:44, fabsy wrote:

Im a newbie to ruby (hehe).
I have a question.
Is there any better way to do this? :

---------------
puts "Enter Username"
usr = gets
puts "Enter Password"
usr_pass = gets
User = "user"
Pass = "pass"

if usr > User
  if usr_pass > Pass
  puts "Correct user and pass"
  else
  puts "Correct user"
  puts "Wrong pass"
  end
else
  if usr_pass > Pass
  puts "Correct pass"
  else
  puts "Wrong pass"
  end
  puts "Wrong user"
end

Thanks!

Btw, why do you compare with greater than and a string?

I didn't know how to compare so I just guessed it would be greater
than.
How would you do if you where to do a program like mine? The way you
wrote or any other way?

Well, you're testing for equality, so greater than wouldn't catch a lot of cases. I'd suggest these:

if X != Y # X not equal to Y

unless X == Y # X equal to Y

You can pick the one that's more linguistically appealing to you, though I have a hunch that 'if' is more popular than 'unless'.

matthew smillie.

···

On Aug 15, 2006, at 14:40, fabsy wrote:

Thanks!

Btw, why do you compare with greater than and a string?

I didn't know how to compare so I just guessed it would be greater
than.
How would you do if you where to do a program like mine? The way you
wrote or any other way?

Matthew Smillie wrote:

if X != Y # X not equal to Y

unless X == Y # X equal to Y

You can pick the one that's more linguistically appealing to you, though I have a hunch that 'if' is more popular than 'unless'.

I only think that's because most other languages don't have `unless' :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Daniel

That was my first intuition too, and I'm certain that's part of it, but upon further reflection I think there's more to it as well. To make an if and unless statement equivalent, you have to negate the condition, leading to this basic schema:

(1) if X != Y <--> unless X == Y
(2) if X == Y <--> unless X != Y

Logically, everything's kosher, but linguistically there's a crucial difference: the 'unless' form of (2) is a double negative. I'm sure people are generally familiar with the admonition to avoid double negatives in their writing, and it's for a good reason: people have a hard time understanding multiple negations; to be fair, two is usually not a problem, especially in familiar forms such as "not unlike X", but in general it's not an easy task to not do incorrectly. (see?)

So, if you assume that given the choice people won't use linguistically-uncomfortable code, then there are two basic comfortable 'if' forms, but only one comfortable 'unless' form. Given the lovely, literary nature of Ruby code, this seems like a reasonable assumption to make; so even if everyone were perfectly familiar with 'unless' as a language construct, you'd still expect 'if' to outnumber 'unless'.

Not that I think this has much bearing on the language, just a neat observation.

matthew smillie

[1] For an entertaining example, see the Language Log talking about a Penny Arcade comic strip here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003437.html

···

On Aug 15, 2006, at 15:05, Daniel Schierbeck wrote:

Matthew Smillie wrote:

if X != Y # X not equal to Y
unless X == Y # X equal to Y
You can pick the one that's more linguistically appealing to you, though I have a hunch that 'if' is more popular than 'unless'.

I only think that's because most other languages don't have `unless' :slight_smile:

Matthew Smillie wrote:

···

On Aug 15, 2006, at 15:05, Daniel Schierbeck wrote:

Matthew Smillie wrote:

if X != Y # X not equal to Y
unless X == Y # X equal to Y
You can pick the one that's more linguistically appealing to you, though I have a hunch that 'if' is more popular than 'unless'.

I only think that's because most other languages don't have `unless' :slight_smile:

That was my first intuition too, and I'm certain that's part of it, but upon further reflection I think there's more to it as well. To make an if and unless statement equivalent, you have to negate the condition, leading to this basic schema:

(1) if X != Y <--> unless X == Y
(2) if X == Y <--> unless X != Y

Logically, everything's kosher, but linguistically there's a crucial difference: the 'unless' form of (2) is a double negative. I'm sure people are generally familiar with the admonition to avoid double negatives in their writing, and it's for a good reason: people have a hard time understanding multiple negations; to be fair, two is usually not a problem, especially in familiar forms such as "not unlike X", but in general it's not an easy task to not do incorrectly. (see?)

So, if you assume that given the choice people won't use linguistically-uncomfortable code, then there are two basic comfortable 'if' forms, but only one comfortable 'unless' form. Given the lovely, literary nature of Ruby code, this seems like a reasonable assumption to make; so even if everyone were perfectly familiar with 'unless' as a language construct, you'd still expect 'if' to outnumber 'unless'.

Not that I think this has much bearing on the language, just a neat observation.

Interesting thoughts (and cool example). I do however tend to use short, one-liner conditional statements the most, in which I think `unless' fits much nicer than `if not'.

Cheers,
Daniel