# Data Types

## This is where it starts getting fun!

### Let's get started

Awesome! Glad to see you here! You're going to learn some great things in this
lesson. Ruby has a few different ways to manipulate data, and you're going to
play with them!

Click the icon like this (on the bottom of the screen) to get started:

![Not this one! The one below!](/icon_button/arrow_right)

### Lesson Controls

Before we move on, Here's a refresher on the controls you can use to move around
in the Lesson.

![](/icon_button/arrow_left)
__back__: goes back one page

![](/icon_button/arrow_right)
__continue__: goes to the next page

![](/icon_button/menu)
__menu__: makes it easy to jump around to any lesson

![](/icon_button/x)
__close__: closes the tutor

Don't forget! Press this to move to the next part:

![](/icon_button/arrow_right)

Have at it!

## Strings

### You've got this down!

_String_s are something you already know about! Let's refresh your memory.

Basically, Strings let you manipulate a bunch of characters. It's sort of like
writing something down: and often, Strings are used for handling input and
output. Check it out:

    name = "Steve"
    alert name

This should be familliar. If it isn't you may want to go review the Basic Ruby
lesson before moving on. Gotta learn the basics before you can understand the
hard stuff!

### Concatawhat?

Here's a big word for you: __concatenation__. It's a mouthful, but luckily for
you, it means something really simple: 

    first_name = "Steve"
    last_name = "Klabnik"
    alert first_name + last_name

See what I mean by addition? The _+_ lets us __concatenate__ the two Strings
together. The first name goes up front, and the last name goes in the back. Nice
and easy.

### Interpawho?

Okay, since you did so well with that word, I'm going to throw another one at
you, while you're still trying to recover: __interpolation__. It kinda means
'put into.' See if this makes sense:

    first_name = "Steve"
    alert "The first name is #{first_name}".

Whoah! What's up with that? Try running it, and see what it does.

### They're like pincers

Terrible analogy alert: See that { and its partner in crime, }? These two _curly
braces_ are like the pincers of some strange species of crab. You can put
whatever you want between them, and they hold your info in place in the middle
of a string.


Oh, and the # (a _hash_), is a funky hat the crab wears. Or something. I dunno.
Point is, you need all three parts, #{} and something in the middle. And that's
__interpolation__.

## Arrays

### The 411

### Concatination

### A short shout-out to Modules

### Not a treasure map...

### Gotta collect 'em all!

## Hashes

### A slightly different Array

## Putting them together

### Arrays of Arrays

### Arrays of hashes

### Hashes of hashes

### Hashes of Arrays

## Summary

### Good job!

Awesome! You should be prepared to play around with all kinds of data now. Keep
up all the good work!