What is the difference between puts, print, and p in Ruby?

puts and print write the to_s text of a value and return nil, while p writes the inspect form and returns the value itself.

puts adds a newline after each value, and print adds none. Given an array, puts prints each element on its own line.

p shows the developer view of a value. Strings keep their quotes, and nil appears as nil, where puts nil prints an empty line. Because p returns its argument, you can put it in the middle of an expression while debugging and the result does not change.

puts "Hello"    # Hello\n (returns nil)
print "Hello"   # Hello (returns nil)
p "Hello"       # "Hello"\n (returns "Hello")