Extracting the last n characters from a ruby string

Question

To get the last `n` characters from a string, I assumed you could use ``` ending = string[-n..-1] ``` but if the string is less than `n` letters long, you get `nil`. What workarounds are available? Background: The strings are plain ASCII, and I have access to ruby 1.9.1, and I'm using Plain Old Ruby Objects (no web frameworks).

Accepted Answer

Here you have a one liner, you can put a number greater than the size of the string:

```
"123".split(//).last(5).to_s
```

For ruby 1.9+

```
"123".split(//).last(5).join("").to_s
```

For ruby 2.0+, join returns a string

```
"123".split(//).last(5).join
```

Extracting the last n characters from a ruby string

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