How to check if a Ruby object is a Boolean

Question

Simplest way I can think of:

# checking whether foo is a boolean
!!foo == foo

I find this to be concise and self-documenting:

[true, false].include? foo

If using Rails or ActiveSupport, you can even do a direct query using in?

foo.in? [true, false]

Checking against all possible values isn't something I'd recommend for floats, but feasible when there are only two possible values!

There is no Boolean class in Ruby, the only way to check is to do what you're doing (comparing the object against true and false or the class of the object against TrueClass and FalseClass). Can't think of why you would need this functionality though, can you explain? :)

If you really need this functionality however, you can hack it in:

module Boolean; end
class TrueClass; include Boolean; end
class FalseClass; include Boolean; end

true.is_a?(Boolean) #=> true
false.is_a?(Boolean) #=> true

As stated above there is no boolean class just TrueClass and FalseClass however you can use any object as the subject of if/unless and everything is true except instances of FalseClass and nil

Boolean tests return an instance of the FalseClass or TrueClass

(1 > 0).class #TrueClass

The following monkeypatch to Object will tell you whether something is an instance of TrueClass or FalseClass

class Object
  def boolean?
    self.is_a?(TrueClass) || self.is_a?(FalseClass) 
  end
end

Running some tests with irb gives the following results

?> "String".boolean?
=> false
>> 1.boolean?
=> false
>> Time.now.boolean?
=> false
>> nil.boolean?
=> false
>> true.boolean?
=> true
>> false.boolean?
=> true
>> (1 ==1).boolean?
=> true
>> (1 ==2).boolean?
=> true

If your code can sensibly be written as a case statement, this is pretty decent:

case mybool
when TrueClass, FalseClass
  puts "It's a bool!"
else
  puts "It's something else!"
end

An object that is a boolean will either have a class of TrueClass or FalseClass so the following one-liner should do the trick

mybool = true
mybool.class == TrueClass || mybool.class == FalseClass
=> true

The following would also give you true/false boolean type check result

mybool = true    
[TrueClass, FalseClass].include?(mybool.class)
=> true

So try this out (x == true) ^ (x == false) note you need the parenthesis but this is more beautiful and compact.

It even passes the suggested like "cuak" but not a "cuak"... class X; def !; self end end ; x = X.new; (x == true) ^ (x == false)

Note: See that this is so basic that you can use it in other languages too, that doesn't provide a "thing is boolean".

Note 2: Also you can use this to say thing is one of??: "red", "green", "blue" if you add more XORS... or say this thing is one of??: 4, 5, 8, 35.