Writing a Ruby class method and getting unexpected token kEND error

Question

I am writing a class, Wrapper, and am giving it a class method self.wrap. I am getting an unexpected end-of-input error. I have been staring at the code forever and can't see where the mistake might be. I think I have all of my end's in place. What am I missing?

require 'pry'
class Wrapper
    def self.wrap(input_string, column_number)
        position = 0
        num_inserted = 0
        while (position + column_number < line.length) do
            last_space_index = input_string.rindex(" ", position + column_number)
            if last_space_index > position - 1
                input_string[num_inserted + last_space_index] = "\n"
            else
                input_string.insert(num_inserted + position + column_number, "\n")
                position += column_number
                num_inserted ++
            end
        end
    end
end

Answer 1

There is no ++ operator in Ruby.

Instead, you can write:

num_inserted = num_inserted + 1

Or for short:

num_inserted += 1

The error message you're seeing is admittedly quite confusing/misleading.

However, if you use an IDE with language-aware syntax highlighting (something I would highly recommend all programmers, in all languages, set up as a high priority for development) then this should at least highlight exactly which line of code is causing the problem.

For example, entering your code in my local setup reveals the error:

`+' after local variable or literal is interpreted as binary operator
even though it seems like unary operator