Ruby Errors

Learning Goals

Read the three different parts of an error message.
Identify four error types- name errors, syntax errors, type errors, and division errors- and fix them

Introduction

This lesson provides a closer look at some common types of errors. Right now, it may be the case that not all of these error messages make sense or seem meaningful to you. After all, we've only handled a few code examples at this point.

This lesson is meant to be a resource for you to refer back to as you start building more complicated programs and have to debug them. There are a few important takeaways from this lesson:

Don't be afraid of broken programs! It's easy to get frustrated when your program breaks. A lot of beginners tend to jump right back into the code when a test fails, or an error comes up as a consequence of running a program, without reading the error messages. Error messages are there to guide you. They contain important information about the location and type of problem you are encountering. Embrace them and get comfortable reading them––don't run away from them.
Pay attention to the helpful part of error messages. Check out the line number, file name, and the type of error that you're receiving. This will point you in the right direction. Let's take a look at an example from an earlier lab.

There are four files in this lab, each with a particular error. The video below discusses each error and how to resolve them. Everything you need to pass this lab can be found in the video, but additional examples are also provided further down this page.

Reading Error Messages

Error messages have 3 parts:

lib/a_name_error.rb:3:in `<main>': undefined local variable or method `hello_world' for main:Object (NameError)

The location of the error, the "where".

lib/a_name_error.rb:3:in `<main>':

lib/a_name_error.rb is the file the error occurred in.
3 is the line of code with the error.
<main> is the scope of the error.

The description (the "why").

undefined local variable or method `hello_world' for main:Object

The interpreter does the best job it can to tell you what it thinks went wrong.

The type of error, the "who".

(NameError)

This is a Ruby Error Type.

You've solved games of Clue with less information. This is one of the best parts of programming: debugging and fixing errors. It's like you're a detective solving a crime. The only bad thing is that more often than not, you're also the criminal that caused the error in the first place.

Errors are clues, and reading them is the interpreter telling you what to do to fix the program and move on.

Four Common Error Types

Name Errors

NameErrors are caused when a given name is invalid or undefined. Whenever the Ruby interpreter encounters a word it doesn't recognize, it assumes that word is the name of a variable or a method. If that word was never defined as either a variable or a method, it will result in a NameError.

In lib/a_name_error.rb, Ruby sees hello_world on line 3 is not a word it recognizes, and it isn't a defined variable or method. One common cause of this is forgetting to put a String in quotations.

It is also possible our code is attempting to use a variable before it is defined. The following code will work fine:

greeting = "hello there"
greeting
 # => "hello there"

But if we try to call greeting before it is defined, we get a NameError and Ruby will error out before we get to the definition.

greeting # NameError
greeting = "hello there"

Syntax Errors

Syntax errors are pretty self-explanatory: they're the result of incorrect syntax. Thankfully, they're usually followed by a guess about the location of the error. For instance, running ruby lib/a_syntax_error.rb in its original state will produce this error:

lib/a_syntax_error.rb:3: syntax error, unexpected end-of-input

Something is wrong and it has something to do with line 3. In the file, line three looks to be an incomplete variable assignment:

x = 1

x =

Removing this code or finishing the assignment will resolve the error. A very common cause of syntax errors is from forgetting to include end on loops and methods. If you were to paste the following into lib/a_syntax_error.rb:

2.times do
  puts "hi"

You would get an error similar to the last:

syntax error, unexpected end-of-input, expecting keyword_end

Ruby sees do, and expects there to be an end. Similarly, if Ruby sees def, it will also expect an end.

Always read the full details of syntax errors and look for line numbers, which usually appear at the beginning of the error message.

Type Errors

When you try and do a mathematical operation on two objects of a different type, you will receive a TypeError. For example, if you try and add a string to an integer, Ruby will complain.

1 + "1"

Will produce the following error:

TypeError: String can't be coerced into Fixnum

This is the issue we see in lib/a_type_error.rb. The culprit is this line:

1 + "is the loneliest number"

One possible solution to this would be to make sure all values being added together are the same data type. We can't convert "is the loneliest number" into a number, but we can convert 1 into a string:

1.to_s + "is the loneliest number"

Division Errors

DivisionErrors are caused when a given number is divided by 0.

Failures:

  1) Not having any errors and being all green ZeroDivisionError raises a ZeroDivisionError for dividing by zero
     Failure/Error: expect{
       expected no Exception, got #<TypeError: nil can't be coerced into Fixnum> with backtrace:
         # ./lib/a_division_by_zero_error.rb:3:in `/'
         # ./lib/a_division_by_zero_error.rb:3:in `<top (required)>'
         # ./spec/no_ruby_errors_spec.rb:30:in `load'
         # ./spec/no_ruby_errors_spec.rb:30:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'
         # ./spec/no_ruby_errors_spec.rb:29:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'
     # ./spec/no_ruby_errors_spec.rb:29:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Additional Errors

While these are not part of the lab files, they are worth reviewing to avoid future frustration.

No Method Errors

Let's say you want to calculate the amount that each coworker owes for a lunch order on Seamless. The order came to $64.25 for you and your three coworkers and you all agreed to split the total evenly, so you write:

total = "64.25"
num_of_people = 4
price_per_person = total / num_of_people

And you get:

3:in `<main>': undefined method `/' for "64.25":String (NoMethodError)

This error happened because we defined total as a string, not as a number, and Ruby doesn't know how to divide a string by a number. It's like telling Ruby to divide the word "lemon" by 7—it has no idea what to do. There are two ways around this error:

Option One: You could change total into a float from the start by removing the quotes:

total = 64.25
num_of_people = 4
price_per_person = total / num_of_people

# => 16.0625

Option Two: You could change total from a string to a float in the division step:

total = "64.25"
num_of_people = 4
price_per_person = total.to_f / num_of_people

# => 16.0625

The NoMethodError will often occur when you have a variable set to nil (essentially, nothing or no value), without realizing it. Most attempts to use a method on something that equals nil will result in the NoMethodError. This is because you are asking an object, nil in this case, to do something it does not know how to do. In other words, you are calling a method that is not defined for that particular object.

For example:

missing_value = nil

missing_value.length

This will produce the following error

NoMethodError: undefined method `length' for nil:NilClass

Argument Errors

Argument errors occur when methods are passed either too few or too many arguments. For instance, let's say you have a simple method, called calculate_interest which takes the value of a loan and finds the amount of interest that accumulates over the loan's first year given that the annual interest rate is 5.25%:

def calculate_interest(loan_amount)
  loan_amount * 0.0525
end

You want to see what happens so you call it below:

def calculate_interest(loan_amount)
  loan_amount * 0.0525
end

puts calculate_interest

What results is:

1:in `calculate_interest': wrong number of arguments (0 for 1) (ArgumentError)

This is because you called on the method calculate_interest, which takes one argument, loan_amount, without passing it a value for loan_amount. To call on this method, you must pass it a number. For instance, let's say you're considering taking out a loan of $9,400 to buy a fancy La Marzocco espresso machine for your cafe.

def calculate_interest(loan_amount)
  loan_amount * 0.0525
end

puts calculate_interest(9400)

Now that you passed the method a value for loan_amount, it will calculate the first year's interest, $493.50.

Conclusion

Many other errors can occur in Ruby, this just covered the most common errors encountered when beginning to code in Ruby. Ruby errors are pretty descriptive and they are there to help you out, so always see if the error is offering you a hint about your code.

MeaganRitchie-zz/reading-errors-and-debugging-reading-errors-den01-seng-ft-031521