Just like with every other method in Ruby (or actually pretty much any object-oriented language),
a === b
means whatever the author of a‘s class wants it to mean.
However, if you don’t want to confuse the heck out of your colleagues, the convention is that === is the case subsumption operator. Basically, it’s a boolean operator which asks the question “If I have a drawer labelled a would it make sense to put b in that drawer?“
An alternative formulation is “If a described a set, would b be a member of that set?“
For example:
(1..5) === 3 # => true
(1..5) === 6 # => false
Integer === 42 # => true
Integer === 'fourtytwo' # => false
/ell/ === 'Hello' # => true
/ell/ === 'Foobar' # => false
The main usage for the === operator is in case expressions, since
case foo
when bar
baz
when quux
flurb
else
blarf
end
gets translated to something (roughly) like
_temp = foo
if bar === _temp
baz
elsif quux === _temp
flurb
else
blarf
end
Note that if you want to search for this operator, it is usually called the triple equals operator or threequals operator or case equality operator. I really dislike those names, because this operator has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with equality.
In particular, one would expect equality to be symmetric: if a is equal to b, then b better be also equal to a. Also, one would expect equality to be transitive: if a == b and b == c, then a == c. While there is no way to actually guarantee that in a single-dispatch language like Ruby, you should at least make an effort to preserve this property (for example, by following the coerce protocol).
However, for === there is no expectation of either symmetry or transitivity. In fact, it is very much by design not symmetric. That’s why I don’t like calling it anything that even remotely resembles equality. It’s also why I think, it should have been called something else like ~~~ or whatever.