No increment operator (++) in Ruby? [duplicate]

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Ruby has no pre/post increment/decrement operator. For instance, x++ or x-- will fail to parse. More importantly, ++x or --x will do nothing! In fact, they behave as multiple unary prefix operators: -x == ---x == -----x == ...... To increment a number, simply write x += 1.

Taken from “Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know
” (archive, mirror)

That explains it better than I ever could.

EDIT: and the reason from the language author himself (source):

  1. ++ and — are NOT reserved operator in Ruby.
  2. C’s increment/decrement operators are in fact hidden assignment. They affect variables, not objects. You cannot accomplish assignment via method. Ruby uses +=/-= operator instead.
  3. self cannot be a target of assignment. In addition, altering the value of integer 1 might cause severe confusion throughout the program.

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