Why won't Ruby return an array without "return"?

Question

def foo
  1,2
end

causes syntax error "unexpected ',', expecting keyword_end"

I'd think this is valid Ruby. What's wrong?

Answer 1

You're not returning an array.

You should have this:

def foo
  [1, 2]
end

Ruby isn't expecting a comma (,) because it isn't valid syntax. Integers in a simple array should be surrounded by brackets as well as delineated by a comma.