Kernel#Array converts an object to an Array by calling to_ary or to_a on the object passed into it. This works very well to convert most objects into an array:
Array(5) # => [5]
Array([1, 2]) # => [1, 2]
Array(nil) # => []
But because of its mechanics, it doesn’t work like this for all kinds of objects, which can lead to some unexpected surprises in some cases. Let’s say you have an object or an array of objects and you only want the first value:
object_or_array = Time.now
Array(object_or_array).first # => 52
Kernel#Array initially checks if the object respond to to_ary:
Time.now.respond_to?(:to_ary) # => false
If not, it attempts to call to_a on the object. Some classes like Time and Hash implement a custom to_a method which doesn’t wrap the original object itself into an array. Time#to_a instead returns an array of its components. Hence, in the above example, it returned the seconds instead if the whole Time object.
Time.now.to_a # => [52, 13, 19, 22, 1, 2014, 3, 22, false, "UTC"]
Following the earlier example, if you do want to create an array containing the Time object and you’re using Rails, you can use Array#wrap, which doesn’t call to_a on the argument:
object_or_array = Time.now
Array.wrap(object_or_array).first # => Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:13:22 UTC +00:00
In plain Ruby however, there’s currently no elegant alternative.