What is the difference between nil and false in Ruby?

Overview

Everything is regarded as an object in Ruby. Ruby’s built-in data types are false and nil.

students = ["Jeery", "Tom", "Eddie"]
#this will print student at index 0
puts students[0]
#nil
#this will output nothing since index doesnot exist
puts students[4]
#this will output the class that belongs to nil
puts students[4].class
#false
#this will output false since both names does not match
puts students[0] == students[1]
#this will output the class that belongs to false
puts (students[0] == students[1]).class
#special case
#nil treated as false
Jeery = nil
if Jeery
    puts "Jeery is present"
else 
    puts "Jeery is absent"
end
#false treated as false
Tom = false
if Tom
    puts "Tom is present"
else 
    puts "Tom is absent"
end

`nil`	`false`
`nil` is a `NilClass` object	`false` is a `FalseClass` object
`nil` is not a valid value	`false` is a valid value
`nil` does have a type	`false` is a boolean data type

What is the difference between nil and false in Ruby?

Overview

Special case

Explanation