What does .sort do?

Question

a=[“b”, “c”, “a”, “d”]
a.sort
puts a[1]
#answer is “a”. How?

Answer 1

Actually, it should print out:
c

.sort does what them name suggests, it sorts the list. However, a regular .sort returns just the sorted representation of the list in question - it doesn't *change* it inside. So that you can assign a new variable to it, like:

b = a.sort

In order to change a itself, you either reassign it, like:

a = a.sort

or use a shorthand with an exclamation mark at the end:

a.sort!

The last command shifts the list's elements inside and sorts them in the ascending order (by default).