In Ruby, we assign values to variables using =, the assignment operator. But if we’ve already used = for assignment, how do we check to see if two things are equal? Well, we use ==, which is a comparator (also called a relational operator). == means “is equal to.” When you type

x = 2
y = 2
if x == y
  print "x and y are equal!"
end

you’re saying: “if x equals y, print ‘x and y are equal!’” You can also check to see if two values are not equal using the != comparator.