title: Different way of creating ruby strings
body: <p>I've come across this a few times, but never really understood it.  Can someone explain to me how this syntax creates a string?</p>
  
  <pre><code>STRING = &lt;&lt;-EOS
  This is a string!!
  EOS
  
  puts STRING
  =&gt; "This is a string!!"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As first I thought there was something special about the <code>&lt;&lt;-EOS</code>, but it actually appears to work with any char.  <code>&lt;&lt;x</code> for instance also works</p>
  
  <p>Can someone explain to me what exactly this syntax means?  And how it is that a string is created?</p>