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Ruby program to subtract a number without using the minus (-) operator

Last Updated : December 15, 2025

Problem Solution

In this program, we will read two integer numbers from the user and then subtract the numbers from another number without using the minus (-) operator.

Program/Source Code

The source code to subtract the numbers without using the minus (-) operator is given below. The given program is compiled and executed successfully.

# Ruby program to subtract the numbers 
# without using the '-' operator

subt=0
num1=0
num2=0

print "Enter number1: ";
num1 = gets.chomp.to_i;  

print "Enter number2: ";
num2 = gets.chomp.to_i;  

subt = num1 + (~num2) + 1;

print "Subtraction is: ",subt;

Output

Enter number1: 8
Enter number2: 3
Subtraction is: 5

Explanation

In the above program, we created three variables num1, num2, subt initialized with 0. Then we read values num1 and num2 from the user. After that, we subtracted num2 from num1 without using the minus (-) operator and printed the result.

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