The $ is just a character in the string. Is there a reason you think it would need to be escaped?

How come the $ does not need to be escaped in this solution?

Huh, apparently .to_i converts the first number it can find in a string

Fixed

what does the & symbol do?

this is the best

Thanks

This is the so called "ternary operator":
http://www.w3resource.com/ruby/ruby-ternary-operator.php

condition ? something : something-else

is a shortcut for:

if condition
  something
else
  something-else
end

what does ? and : mean in ruby

From the kata "There are a few assumptions we will accept the year 0, even though there is no year 0 in the Gregorian Calendar."

As stated in the kata year 0 is an assumption made.

How is there a test for year 0 when there isn't a year 0 in the calendar?

I'm not sure that rule applies correctly to BC dates. Not having a year 0 would offset the rule by 1 year. The correction wasn't implemented in BC and therefore any testing of it for negative dates is not valid.

Ah, the translations just came in and I meant to go back to edit the descriptions. Good catch! =)

in the Ruby version:

1. the instructions specify that the hash keys will be symbols but they are actually strings
2. the instructions give a different case for the hash keys (camel case in the instructions, snake case in the tests)