What is the Ruby <=> (spaceship) operator?

Question

What is the Ruby <=> (spaceship) operator? Is the operator implemented by any other languages?

Answer 1

The spaceship method is useful when you define it in your own class and include the Comparable module. Your class then gets the >, < , >=, <=, ==, and between? methods for free.

class Card
  include Comparable
  attr_reader :value

  def initialize(value)
    @value = value
  end

  def <=> (other) #1 if self>other; 0 if self==other; -1 if self other.value
  end

end

a = Card.new(7)
b = Card.new(10)
c = Card.new(8)

puts a > b # false
puts c.between?(a,b) # true

# Array#sort uses <=> :
p [a,b,c].sort # [#, #, #]