charCodeAt() equivalent in Ruby

Question

I was wondering if there is a Ruby equivalent of JavaScript's charCodeAt() method. The charCodeAt() method returns the Unicode value of the character at the specified index in a string.

The following example returns the Unicode value of the last character in a string:

str.charCodeAt("HELLO WORLD".length-1)
#=> 68

Is there an equivalent for that in Ruby?

Answer 1

You can use the String#[] and String#ord methods:

'HELLO WORLD'[-1].ord
# => 68

It also handles Unicode characters:

'aā'[1].ord
# => 257