How to return entire row to compare against another row in ruby

< ^ > P N |<>|^_>< --- | ~ ...Help

New to Ruby and would like to the following in Ruby

Read row
save the entire row (maybe zip it).

 process.....


 Receive user changes.

 reread the row for update
 compare the row to the saved row for changes
 if no changes update the row
 if changes error message to user, info has changed.

Thanks for your help

Bryan Webb