This page attempts to index the high-level differences in syntax and semantics between Ruby and Raku. Whatever works in Ruby and must be written differently in Raku should be listed here (whereas many Raku features and idioms won't be).

Hence this should not be mistaken for a beginner tutorial or overview of Raku; it is intended as a technical reference for Raku learners with a strong Ruby background.

Basic syntax §

Statement ending semicolons §

Ruby detects the end of most statements with a newline (and a few exceptions), as long as the expression is complete. It is common break up a long expression by leaving an operator dangling at the end of a line to ensure that the parsing will continue:

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foo +     # In Ruby a trailing operator means parsing should continue
  bar +
  baz

In Raku you must explicitly terminate statements with a ;, which allows for better feedback and more flexibility in breaking up long lines. Two exceptions not needing an explicit ; are the last statement in a block, and after the closing curly brace of the block itself (if there is nothing else on that line):

Raku highlighting

my $x;
...;
if 5 < $x < 10 {
  say "Yep!";
  $x = 17         # No ; required before closing } 
}                 # No ; required after closing } because of the newline 
say "Done!";      # The ; is not required here if nothing follows

Whitespace §

Ruby allows a surprising amount of flexibility in the use of whitespace, even with strict mode and warnings turned on:

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# unidiomatic but valid Ruby
puts"Hello "+
(people [ i]
    . name
    ) . upcase+"!"if$greeted[i]<1

Raku also endorses programmer freedom and creativity, but balanced syntactic flexibility against its design goal of having a consistent, deterministic, extensible grammar that supports single-pass parsing and helpful error messages, integrates features like custom operators cleanly, and doesn't lead programmers to accidentally misstate their intent. Also, the practice of "code golf" is slightly de-emphasized; Raku is designed to be more concise in concepts than in keystrokes.

As a result, there are various places in the syntax where whitespace is optional in Ruby, but is either mandatory or forbidden in Raku. Many of those restrictions are unlikely to concern much real-life Perl code (e.g. whitespace being disallowed between an array variable and its square brackets), but there are a few that will unfortunately conflict with some Ruby hackers' habitual coding styles:

No space allowed before the opening parenthesis of an argument list.

Raku highlighting

foo (3, 4, 1); # Not right in Ruby or Raku (in Raku this would 
               # try to pass a single argument of type List to foo)

Raku highlighting

foo(3, 4, 1);  # Ruby and Raku 
foo 3, 4, 1;   # Ruby and Raku - alternative parentheses-less style

Space is required immediately after keywords

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if(a < 0); ...; end         # OK in Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $a; ...;
if ($a < 0) { ... }         # Raku 
if $a < 0 { ... }           # Raku, more idiomatic

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while(x > 5); ...; end      # OK in Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $x; ...;
while ($x > 5) { ... }      # Raku 
while $x > 5 { ... }        # Raku, more idiomatic

No space allowed before a postfix/postcircumfix operator (including array/hash subscripts).

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seen [ :fish ] = 1    # Ruby, not idiomatic but allowed

Raku highlighting

%seen< fish > = 1;    # Raku, no space allowed after 'seen'

Space required before an infix operator if it would conflict with an existing postfix/postcircumfix operator.
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```
n<1     # Ruby (in Raku this would conflict with postcircumfix < >)
```
Raku highlighting
```
$n < 1; # Raku 
```

`.` Method calls, `.public_send`§

Method call syntax uses a dot just like Ruby:

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person.name    # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $person; ...;
$person.name   # Raku

To call a method whose name is not known until runtime:

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object.public_send(methodname, args);  # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $object; my Str $methodname; my @args; ...;
$object."$methodname"(@args);   # Raku

If you leave out the quotes, then Raku expects $methodname to contain a Method object, rather than the simple string name of the method.

Variables, sigils, scope, and common types §

In Ruby, variables use sigils primarily to indicate scope. $ for global scope, @@ for class scope, @ for instance scope, and no sigil for local variables (including parameters). The & sigil is also used to indicate method references. Symbols are prefixed with :, but they are not variable and so not really sigils.

In Raku sigils are primarily used to indicate a role that the contained value implements, indicating the type (or at least the interface) of the value. The sigils are invariant, no matter how the variable is being used - you can think of them as part of the variable's name.

The scope of a variable is instead indicated by the declaration itself (my, has, our, etc).

Variable scope §

For local variables, Ruby uses implicit variable declaration upon assignment and limited to the current block. In Ruby the content of an if or while built-in construct is not a block or scope.

Raku uses explicit scope indicators, and never creates variables implicitly. Every place you see { ... } is a scope, including the body of a conditional or loop. The commonly used scope declarations:

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foo = 7        # Ruby, variable scope is defined by first assignment and
               # extends to the end of the current block

Raku highlighting

my  $foo = 7;   # Raku, lexical scoped to the current block 
our $foo = 7;   # Raku, package scoped 
has $!foo = 7;  # Raku, instance scoped (attribute)

`$` Scalar §

The $ sigil is always used with "scalar" variables (e.g. $name). These are single-value containers.

This is the most general-purpose variable type, with no restrictions on its contents. Note that you can still address/use its contents, like $x[1], $x{"foo"}, and $f("foo").

`@` Array §

The @ sigil is always used with "array" variables (e.g. @months, @months[2], @months[2, 4] for an array slice). Variables using the @ sigil can only contain things that do the Positional role, indicating positional indexing and slicing capabilities.

Indexing

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puts months[2]; # Ruby

Raku highlighting

say @months[2]; # Raku

Value-slicing

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puts months[8..11].join(',') # Ruby

Raku highlighting

say @months[8..11].join(',') # Raku

`%` Hash §

The % sigil is always used with "hash" variables (e.g. %calories, %calories<apple>, %calories<pear plum>). Variables using the % sigil can only contain things that do the Associative role.

Ruby uses square brackets to access values for both Arrays and Hashes. Raku uses curly braces for hashes instead. The angle brackets version is available which always autoquotes its contents (strings without quotes):

Adverbs can be used to control the type of slice.

Indexing

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puts calories["apple"]  # Ruby

Raku highlighting

say %calories{"apple"}; # Raku

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puts calories["apple"]  # Ruby
puts calories[:apple]   # Ruby, symbols for keys are common

Raku highlighting

say %calories<apple>;   # Raku - angle brackets instead of single-quotes 
say %calories«"$key"»;  # Raku - double angles interpolate as double-quotes

Value-slicing

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puts calories.values_at('pear', 'plum').join(',') # Ruby
puts calories.values_at(%w(pear plum)).join(',')  # Ruby, pretty?

Raku highlighting

say %calories{'pear', 'plum'}.join(',');          # Raku 
say %calories<pear plum>.join(',');               # Raku (prettier) 
my $keys = 'pear plum';
say %calories« $keys ».join(','); # Raku, interpolated split

Key/value-slicing

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puts calories.slice('pear', 'plum')  # Ruby >= 2.5

Raku highlighting

say %calories{'pear', 'plum'}:kv.Hash;   # Raku - use :kv adverb 
say %calories<pear plum>:kv.Hash;        # Raku (prettier version)

`&` Sub §

The & sigil is used very similarly to Ruby's & to refer to the function object of a named subroutine/operator without invoking it, i.e. to use the name as a "noun" instead of a "verb". Variables using the & sigil can only contain things that do the Callable role.

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add = -> n, m { n + m } # Ruby lambda for an addition function
add.(2, 3)              # => 5, Ruby invocation of a lambda
add.call(2, 3)          # => 5, Ruby invocation of a lambda

Raku highlighting

my &add = -> $n, $m { $n + $m }; # Raku addition function 
&add(2, 3);                      # => 5, you can keep the sigil 
add(2, 3);                       # => 5, and it works without it

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def foo
  ...
end
foo_method = method(:foo);     # Ruby

Raku highlighting

sub foo { ... };
my &foo_method = &foo; # Raku

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some_func(&say) # Ruby pass a function reference

Raku highlighting

sub some_func { ... };
some_func(&say) # Raku passes function references the same way

Often in Ruby we pass a block as the last parameter, which is especially used for DSLs. This can be an implicit parameter called by yield, or an explicit block prefixed with &. In Raku a Callable parameter is always listed and called by the variable name (instead of yield), and there are a variety of ways of invoking the function.

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# Ruby, declare a method and call the implicit block argument
def f
  yield 2
end

# Ruby, invoke f, pass it a block with 1 argument
f do |n|
  puts "Hi #{n}"
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku, declare a method with an explicit block argument 
sub f(&g:($)) {
  g(2)
}
 
# Raku, invoke f, pass it a block with 1 argument 
# There are several other ways to do this 
f(-> $n { say "Hi {$n}" }); # Explicit argument 
f -> $n { say "Hi {$n}" };  # Explicit argument, no parenthesis 
 
# Additionally, if 'f' is a method on instance 'obj' you can use ':' 
# instead of parenthesis 
my $obj; ...;
$obj.f(-> $n { say "Hi {$n}" });  # Explicit argument 
$obj.f: -> $n { say "Hi {$n}" };  # Explicit argument, no parenthesis

`*` Slurpy params / argument expansion §

In Ruby you can declare an argument to slurp the remainder of the passed parameters into an array using a * prefix. It works similarly in Raku:

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def foo(*args); puts "I got #{args.length} args!"; end # Ruby

Raku highlighting

sub foo(*@args) { say "I got #{@args.elems} args!" }   # Raku

The Raku version above is slightly different in that when it slurps in the arguments into @args, one level of nesting, if any, is automatically removed:

Raku highlighting

sub foo(*@args) { say @args.raku }
foo([1, [2, 3], 4], 5, [6, 7]);   # [1, [2, 3], 4, 5, 6, 7]

To preserve the structure of the arguments, you can use **:

Raku highlighting

sub foo(**@args) { say @args.raku }
foo([1, [2, 3], 4], 5, [6, 7]);  # [[1, [2, 3], 4], 5, [6, 7]]

You might want to expand an array into a set of arguments. In Raku this is done using a Slip |:

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args = %w(a b c)         # Ruby
foo(*args)

Raku highlighting

sub foo($q, $r, $s) { ... };
my @args = <a b c>;       # Raku 
foo(|@args);

Raku has many more advanced ways of passing parameters and receiving arguments, see Signatures and Captures.

Twigils §

Raku additionally uses "twigils", which are further indicators about the variable and go between the sigil and the rest of the variable name. Examples:

Variable	Description
$foo	Scalar with no twigil
$!foo	Private instance variable
$.foo	Instance variable accessor
$*foo	Dynamically scoped variable
$^foo	A positional (placeholder) parameter to a block
$:foo	A named (placeholder) parameter to a block
$=foo	POD (documentation) variables
$?FILE	Current source filename. The ? twigil indicates a compile-time value
$~foo	Sublanguage seen by parser, uncommon

Though each of these examples use the $ sigil, most could use @ (Positional) or % (Associative).

`:` Symbols §

Raku generally uses strings in the places where Ruby uses symbols. A primary example of this is in hash keys.

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address[:joe][:street] # Typical Ruby nested hash with symbol keys

Raku highlighting

my %address; ...;
%address<joe><street>  # Typical Raku nested hash with string keys

Raku has colon-pair syntax, which can sometimes look like Ruby symbols.

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:age            # Ruby symbol

Raku highlighting

# All of these are equivalent for Raku 
:age            ;# Raku pair with implicit True value 
:age(True)      ;# Raku pair with explicit True value 
age => True     ;# Raku pair using arrow notation 
"age" => True   ;# Raku pair using arrow notation and explicit quotes

You could probably get away with using a colon-pair without an explicit value and pretend that it is a Ruby symbol a lot of the time, but it isn't idiomatic Raku.

Operators §

Many operators have a similar usage in both Ruby and Raku:

, List Separator
+ Numeric Addition
- Numeric Subtraction
* Numeric Multiplication
/ Numeric Division
% Numeric Modulus
** Numeric Exponentiation
! && || Booleans, high-precedence
not and or Booleans, low-precedence

You may use $x++ instead of x += 1 as a shortcut for incrementing a variable. This can be used as a pre-increment ++$x (increment, return new value) or post-increment $x++ (increment, return old value).

You may use $x-- instead of x -= 1 as a shortcut for decrementing a variable. This can be used as a pre-decrement --$x (decrement, return new value) or post-decrement $x-- (decrement, return old value).

`== != < > <= >=` Comparisons §

Comparisons in Raku are separated between numeric and string to avoid common errors.

== != < > <= >= Comparisons
eq ne lt gt le ge String comparisons

For example, using == tries to convert the values to numbers, and eq tries to convert the values to strings.

`<=>` Three-way comparisons §

In Ruby, the <=> operator returns -1, 0, or 1. In Raku, they return Order::Less, Order::Same, or Order::More.

<=> forces numeric context for the comparison.

leg ("Less, Equal, or Greater?") forces string context for the comparison.

cmp does either <=> or leg, depending on the existing type of its arguments.

`~~` Smartmatch operator §

This is a very common matching operator which is similar to === in Ruby. Here are some examples:

Raku highlighting

my $foo; ...;
say "match!" if $foo ~~ /bar/;       # Regex match 
say "match!" if $foo ~~ "bar";       # String match 
say "match!" if $foo ~~ :(Int, Str); # Signature match (destructure)

An equivalent in Ruby would be

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

foo = "bar"
puts "match 1!" if /bar/ === foo       # Regex match
puts "match 2!" if foo === "bar"       # String match
puts "match 3!" if String === foo      # Class match

Please note that, in this case, === is not symmetric; in the first and last case, the variable has to be in the right-hand side. There is no equivalent to the signature class in Ruby, either.

See S03/Smartmatching for more information on this feature.

`& | ^` Numeric bitwise ops §

`& | ^` Boolean ops §

In Raku, these single-character ops have been removed, and replaced by two-character ops which coerce their arguments to the needed context.

｢text｣ without highlighting

# Infix ops (two arguments; one on each side of the op)
+&  +|  +^  And Or Xor: Numeric
~&  ~|  ~^  And Or Xor: String
?&  ?|  ?^  And Or Xor: Boolean

# Prefix ops (one argument, after the op)
+^  Not: Numeric
~^  Not: String
?^  Not: Boolean (same as the ! op)

`&.` Conditional chaining operator §

Ruby uses the &. operator to chain methods without raising an error if one invocation returns nil. In Raku use .? for the same purpose.

`<< >>` Numeric shift left, right ops, shovel operator §

Replaced by +< and +> .

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puts 42 << 3  # Ruby

Raku highlighting

say  42 +< 3; # Raku

Note that Ruby often uses the << operator as the "shovel operator", which is similar to .push. This usage isn't common in Raku.

`=>` and `:` Key-value separators §

In Ruby, => is used in the context of key/value pairs for Hash literal declaration and parameter passing. : is used as a shorthand when the left side is a symbol.

In Raku, => is the Pair operator, which is quite different in principle, but works the same in many situations.

If you are using => in a hash literal, then the usage is very similar:

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

hash = { "AAA" => 1, "BBB" => 2 }  # Ruby, though symbol keys are more common

Raku highlighting

my %hash = ( AAA => 1, BBB => 2 ); # Raku, uses ()'s though {} usually work

`? :` Ternary operator §

In Raku, this is spelled with two question marks instead of one question mark, and two exclamation points instead of one colon. This deviation from the common ternary operators disambiguates several situations and makes the false-case stand out more.

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result     = (  score > 60 )  ? 'Pass'  : 'Fail'; # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $score; ...;
my $result = ( $score > 60 ) ?? 'Pass' !! 'Fail'; # Raku

`+` String concatenation §

Replaced by the tilde. Mnemonic: think of "stitching" together the two strings with needle and thread.

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$food = 'grape' + 'fruit'  # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $food = 'grape' ~ 'fruit'; # Raku

String interpolation §

In Ruby, "#{foo}s" deliminates a block embedded in a double-quoted string. In Raku drop the # prefix: "{$foo}s". As in Ruby, you can place arbitrary code into the embedded block and it will be rendered in string context.

Simple variables can be interpolated into a double-quoted string without using the block syntax:

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# Ruby
name = "Bob"
puts "Hello! My name is #{name}!"

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Raku
my $name = "Bob";
say "Hello! My name is $name!"

The result of an embedded block in Ruby uses .to_s to get string context. Raku uses .Str, or .gist for the same affect.

Compound statements §

Conditionals §

`if` `elsif` `else` `unless`§

This work very similarly between Ruby and Raku, but Raku uses { } to clearly delineate the blocks.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
if x > 5
    puts "Bigger!"
elsif x == 5
    puts "The same!"
else
    puts "Smaller!"
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
my $x; ...;
if $x > 5 {
    say "Bigger!"
} elsif $x == 5 {
    say "The same!"
} else {
    say "Smaller!"
}

Binding the conditional expression to a variable is a little different:

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

if x = dostuff(); ...; end   # Ruby

Raku highlighting

sub dostuff() {...};
if dostuff() -> $x {...}     # Raku, block-assignment uses arrow

The unless conditional only allows for a single block in Raku; it does not allow for an elsif or else clause.

`case`-`when`§

The Raku given-when construct is like a chain of if-elsif-else statements, and its direct analog is Ruby's case-when construct. Just as Ruby uses the === (case equality) operator for each condition in a case-when expression, Raku, likewise, uses the smartmatch ~~ operator with given-when.

It has the general structure:

｢pseudo｣ without highlighting

given EXPR {
    when EXPR { ... }
    when EXPR { ... }
    default { ... }
}

In its simplest form, the construct is as follows:

Raku highlighting

my $value; ...;
given $value {
    when "a match" {
        # do-something(); 
    }
    when "another match" {
        # do-something-else(); 
    }
    default {
        # do-default-thing(); 
    }
}

This is simple in the sense that a scalar value is matched in the when statements. More generally, the matches are actually smartmatches on the input value such that lookups using more complex entities such as regexps can be used instead of scalar values.

Loops §

`while` `until`§

Mostly unchanged; parentheses around the conditions are optional, but if used, must not immediately follow the keyword, or it will be taken as a function call instead. Binding the conditional expression to a variable is also a little different:

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

while x = dostuff(); ...; end    # Ruby

Raku highlighting

sub dostuff {...}; ...;
while dostuff() -> $x {...}      # Raku

`for` `.each`§

for loops are rare in Ruby, instead we typically use .each on an enumerable. The most direct translation to Raku would be to use .map for both .each and .map, but we typically use a for loop directly.

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# Ruby for loop
for n in 0..5
    puts "n: #{n}"
end

# Ruby, more common usage of .each
(0..5).each do |n|
    puts "n: #{n}"
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
for 0..5 -> $n {
    say "n: $n";
}
 
# Raku, misusing .map 
(0..5).map: -> $n {
    say "n: $n";
}

In Ruby, the iteration variable for .each is a copy of the list element, and modifying it does nothing to the original list. Note that it is a copy of the REFERENCE, so you can still change the values to which it refers.

In Raku, that alias is read-only (for safety) and thus behaves exactly like Ruby, unless you change -> to <->.

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cars.each { |car| ... }    # Ruby; read-only reference

Raku highlighting

my @cars; ...;
for @cars  -> $car   {...} # Raku; read-only 
for @cars <-> $car   {...} # Raku; read-write

Flow interruption statements §

Same as Ruby:

next
redo

Ruby's break is last in Raku.

Regular expressions ( regex / regexp )§

Regular expressions in Raku are significantly different, and more powerful, than in Ruby. By default whitespace is ignored and all characters must be escaped, for example. Regexes can be easily combined and declared in ways to build efficient grammars.

There are many powerful features of Raku regexes, especially defining entire grammars using the same syntax. See Regexes and Grammars.

`.match` method and `=~` operator §

In Ruby, regex matches can be done against a variable using the =~ regexp match operator or the .match method. In Raku, the ~~ smartmatch op is used instead, or the .match method.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

next if line   =~ /static/   # Ruby
next if line  !~  /dynamic/; # Ruby
next if line.match(/static/) # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $line; ...;
next if $line  ~~ /static/;    # Raku 
next if $line !~~ /dynamic/ ;  # Raku 
next if $line.match(/static/); # Raku

Alternately, the .match and .subst methods can be used. Note that .subst is non-mutating. See S05/Substitution.

`.sub` and `.sub!`§

In Raku you typically use the s/// operator to do regex substitution.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

fixed = line.sub(/foo/, 'bar')        # Ruby, non-mutating

Raku highlighting

my $line; ...;
my $fixed = $line.subst(/foo/, 'bar') # Raku, non-mutating

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line.sub!(/foo/, 'bar')   # Ruby, mutating

Raku highlighting

my $line; ...;
$line ~~ s/foo/bar/;      # Raku, mutating

Regex options §

Move any options from the end of the regex to the beginning. This may require you to add the optional m on a plain match like /abc/.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

next if $line =~    /static/i # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my $line; ...;
next if $line ~~ m:i/static/; # Raku

Whitespace is ignored, most things must be quoted §

In order to aid in readability and reusability, whitespace is not significant in Raku regexes.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

/this is a test/ # Ruby, boring string
/this.*/         # Ruby, possibly interesting string

Raku highlighting

/ this " " is " " a " " test /; # Raku, each space is quoted 
/ "this is a test" /;           # Raku, quoting the whole string 
/ this .* /;                    # Raku, possibly interesting string

Special matchers generally fall under the <> syntax §

There are many cases of special matching syntax that Raku regexes support. They won't all be listed here, but often instead of being surrounded by (), the assertions will be surrounded by <>.

For character classes, this means that:

[abc] becomes <[abc]>
[^abc] becomes <-[abc]>
[a-zA-Z] becomes <[a..zA..Z]>
[[:upper:]] becomes <:upper>
[abc[:upper:]] becomes <[abc]+:Upper>

For look-around assertions:

(?=[abc]) becomes <?[abc]>
(?=ar?bitrary* pattern) becomes <before ar?bitrary* pattern>
(?!=[abc]) becomes <![abc]>
(?!=ar?bitrary* pattern) becomes <!before ar?bitrary* pattern>
(?<=ar?bitrary* pattern) becomes <after ar?bitrary* pattern>
(?<!ar?bitrary* pattern) becomes <!after ar?bitrary* pattern>

(Unrelated to <> syntax, the "lookaround" /foo\Kbar/ becomes /foo <( bar )> /

(?(?{condition))yes-pattern|no-pattern) becomes [ <?{condition}> yes-pattern | no-pattern ]

Longest token matching (LTM) displaces alternation §

In Raku regexes, | does Longest Token Match (LTM), which decides which alternation wins an ambiguous match based off of a set of rules, rather than about which was written first in the regex.

To avoid the new logic, change any | in your Ruby regex to a ||.

File-related operations §

Reading the lines of a text file into an array §

Both Ruby and Raku make it easy to read all of the lines in a file into a single variable, and in both cases each line has the newline removed.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

lines = File.readlines("file")   # Ruby

Raku highlighting

my @lines = "file".IO.lines;     # Raku, create an IO object from a string

Iterating over the lines of a text file §

Reading the entire file into memory isn't recommended. The .lines method in Raku returns a lazy sequence, but assigning to an array forces the file to be read. It is better to iterate over the results:

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
File.foreach("file") do |line|
    puts line
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
for "file".IO.lines -> $line {
    say $line
}

Object orientation §

Basic classes, methods, attributes §

Classes are defined similarly between Ruby and Raku, using the class keyword. Ruby uses def for methods, whereas Raku uses method.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
class Foo
    def greet(name)
        puts "Hi #{name}!"
    end
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
class Foo {
    method greet($name) {
        say "Hi $name!"
    }
}

In Ruby you can use an attribute without declaring it beforehand, and you can tell it is an attribute because of the @ sigil. You can also easily create accessors using attr_accessor and its variants. In Raku you use a has declaration and a variety of sigils. You can use the ! twigil for private attributes or . to create an accessor.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
class Person
    attr_accessor :age    # Declare .age as an accessor method for @age
    def initialize
        @name = 'default' # Assign default value to private instance var
    end
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
class Person {
    has $.age;              # Declare $!age and accessor methods 
    has $!name = 'default'; # Assign default value to private instance var 
}

Creating a new instance of the class uses the .new method. In Ruby you must manually assign instance variables as needed inside initialize. In Raku you get a default constructor that accepts key/value pairs of accessor attributes, and can do further setup in the TWEAK method. Like with Ruby, you can override new itself for more advanced functionality, but this is rare.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
class Person
    attr_accessor :name, :age
    def initialize(attrs)
        @name = attrs[:name] || 'Jill'
        @age  = attrs[:age] || 42
        @birth_year = Time.now.year - @age
    end
end
p = Person.new( name: 'Jack', age: 23 )

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
class Person {
    has $.name = 'Jill';
    has $.age  = 42;
    has $.birth_year;
    method TWEAK {
        $!birth_year = now.Date.year - $!age;
    }
}
my $p = Person.new( name => 'Jack', age => 23 )

Private methods §

Private methods in Raku are declared with a ! prefixed in their name, and are invoked with a ! instead of a ..

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
class Foo
    def visible
        puts "I can be seen!"
        hidden
    end

    private
    def hidden
        puts "I cannot easily be called!"
    end
end

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
class Foo {
    method visible {
        say "I can be seen!";
        self!hidden;
    }
 
    method !hidden {
        say "I cannot easily be called!";
    }
}

An important note is that in Ruby child objects can see parent private methods (so they are more like "protected" methods in other languages). In Raku child objects cannot call parent private methods.

Going meta§

Here are a few examples of metaprogramming. Note that Raku separates the metamethods from the regular methods with a caret.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
person = Person.new
person.class
person.methods
person.instance_variables

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
class Person {};
...
my $person = Person.new;
$person.^name;             # Raku, returns Person (class) 
$person.^methods;          # Raku, using .^ syntax to access metamethods 
$person.^attributes;

Like Ruby, in Raku, everything is an object, but not all operations are equivalent to .public_send. Many operators are global functions that use typed multi-dispatch (function signatures with types) to decide which implementation to use.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

5.public_send(:+, 3)    # => 8, Ruby

Raku highlighting

&[+](5, 3)       # => 8, Raku, reference to infix addition operator 
&[+].^candidates # Raku, lists all signatures for the + operator

See Metaobject Protocol for lots of further details.

Environment variables §

Raku module library path §

In Ruby, one of the environment variables to specify extra search paths for modules is RUBYLIB.

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$ RUBYLIB="/some/module/lib" ruby program.rb

In Raku this is similar, you merely needs to change the name. As you probably guessed, you just need to use RAKULIB:

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$ RAKULIB="/some/module/lib" raku program.raku

As with Ruby, if you don't specify RAKULIB, you need to specify the library path within the program via the use lib pragma:

Raku highlighting

# Ruby and Raku 
use lib '/some/module/lib';

Misc.§

Importing specific functions from a module §

In Ruby there is no built-in way to selectively import/export methods from a module.

In Raku you specify the functions which are to be exported by using the is export role on the relevant subs and all subs with this role are then exported. Hence, the following module Bar exports the subs foo and bar but not baz:

Raku highlighting

unit module Bar; # remainder of the file is in module Bar { ... } 
sub foo($a) is export { say "foo $a" }
sub bar($b) is export { say "bar $b" }
sub baz($z) { say "baz $z" }

To use this module, simply use Bar and the functions foo and bar will be available:

Raku highlighting

use Bar;
foo(1);    #=> "foo 1" 
bar(2);    #=> "bar 2"

If you try to use baz an "Undeclared routine" error is raised at compile time.

Some modules allow for selectively importing functions, which would look like:

Raku highlighting

use Bar <foo>; # Import only foo 
foo(1);        #=> "foo 1" 
bar(2);        # Error!

`OptionParser`, parsing command-line flags §

Command line argument switch parsing in Raku is done by the parameter list of the MAIN subroutine.

Ruby highlighting by highlight-js

# Ruby
require 'optparse'
options = {}
OptionParser.new do |opts|
    opts.banner = 'Usage: example.rb --length=abc'
    opts.on("--length", "Set the file") do |length|
        raise "Length must be > 0" unless length.to_i > 0
        options[:length] = length
    end
    opts.on("--filename", "Set the file") do |filename|
        options[:file] = filename
    end
    opts.on("--verbose", "Increase verbosity") do |verbose|
        options[:verbose] = true
    end
end.parse!

puts options[:length]
puts options[:filename]
puts 'Verbosity ', (options[:verbose] ? 'on' : 'off')

Shell highlighting by highlight-js

ruby example.rb --filename=foo --length=42 --verbose
    42
    foo
    Verbosity on

ruby example.rb --length=abc
    Length must be > 0

Raku highlighting

# Raku 
sub MAIN ( Int :$length where * > 0, :$filename = 'file.dat', Bool :$verbose ) {
    say $length;
    say $filename;
    say 'Verbosity ', ($verbose ?? 'on' !! 'off');
}

Shell highlighting by highlight-js

raku example.raku --file=foo --length=42 --verbose
    42
    foo
    Verbosity on
raku example.raku --length=abc
    Usage:
      example.raku [--length=<Int>] [--file=<Any>] [--verbose]

Note that Raku auto-generates a full usage message on error in command-line parsing.

RubyGems, external libraries §

See https://raku.land/, where a growing number of Raku libraries are available along with the tools to manage them.

If the module that you were using has not been converted to Raku, and no alternative is listed in this document, then its use under Raku may not have been addressed yet.

You can experiment with Inline::Ruby to call existing Ruby code from your Raku programs. This uses an embedded instance of the ruby interpreter to run Ruby code called from your Raku script. Note that this is an EXPERIMENTAL library. You can similarly call other language's libraries with Inline::Perl5, Inline::Python, and others.