#48 Console Tricks (revised)

Jun 09, 2012 | 9 minutes | Tools

Here you will learn how to get the most out of the Rails console. I will also demonstrate several utility gems and how to use them without adding them to the Gemfile.

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victor hazbun anuff over 12 years ago

Yeah, but what about Lion os, where I can found ~/.irbrc ???

Anton Trapp over 12 years ago

touch ~/.irbrc
File does not exist, you have to create it ;)

Anton Trapp over 12 years ago

Great as always. Thanks.

For people who are using unicode characters, there is a gem called "hirb-unicode" which alignes the table contents correct.

Btw.: I don't have the bundler issues (rvm / hirb-unicode). Not that I want to complain ;)

Anton Trapp over 12 years ago

My fault. Already added the gem to the gemfile months ago :)
The bundler hack does not work for me, I have to add the gems to the gemfile.

John Rees over 12 years ago

The Textmate snippet for Sublime Text -

          ruby
        
class Object
  def subl(method_name)
    file, line = method(method_name).source_location
    `subl '#{file}:#{line}'`
  end
end

Erik Straub over 12 years ago

Bharat Ruparel over 12 years ago

A ton of useful information as usual :)
I use the ruby-debug gem and now debugger gem, which you recently covered in a revised episode. For a lone developer working by himself, being able to use the ruby-debug/debugger gem is an essential survival skill.
I was wondering if you use any techniques that are specifically applicable to debugging and finding what is not working faster? I haven't kept up with the Pry gem and tried to use it following your episode on it, but it was not a replacement for ruby-debug. Anything which helps find those pesky bugs faster would be super useful.

Nico Ritsche over 12 years ago

I prefer using an ide debugger, like the one in RubyMine. You can conveniently step through code and inspect variables. Super useful...

bertomartin over 12 years ago

How'd you do that if you're using something like Vagrant (a virtual machine for development).

Bharat Ruparel over 12 years ago

Trying to adapt the open a specific method's source at a given line number which Ryan demonstrates using TextMate to VIM. Here is my code in the .irbrc file:

          ruby
        
class Object                                                                                  
    def v(method_name)
      file, line = method(method_name).source_location
      `vi '#{file}' +#{line}`
    end
 end

Here is what I get when try to follow the number_to_currency example:

helper.v(:number_to_currency)
Vim: Warning: Output is not to a terminal

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks in advance.

Bharat

Robert Williams over 12 years ago

Try the following:

          ruby
        
if defined?(Rails)
  class Object

    include Rails::ConsoleMethods

    def vim(method_name)
      file, line = method(method_name).source_location
      fork do
        exec("vim +#{line} '#{file}'")
      end
      Process.wait
      reload!
    end

    alias :v :vim
  end
end

Remove the reload bits if you don't require them.

Robert Williams over 12 years ago

Oh and if you want it to work without rails:

          ruby
        
class Object

  include Rails::ConsoleMethods if defined?(Rails)

  def vim(method_name)
    file, line = method(method_name).source_location
    fork do
      exec("vim +#{line} '#{file}'")
    end
    Process.wait
    reload! if defined?(Rails)
  end

  alias :v :vim
end

Bharat Ruparel over 12 years ago

Hey Thanks Robert. Works like a charm from within the Rails Console. I could not make it work in the plain irb outside of Rails. May be I am missing something?

Michael Kohl over 12 years ago

The y method should still be there if you require 'yaml' first.

          ruby
        
>> RUBY_VERSION
=> "1.9.3"
>> require 'yaml'
=> true
>> y({ "foo" => "bar" })
---
foo: bar
=> nil

Bruno Miranda over 12 years ago

Weird, I get

          
        
rails c
Loading development environment (Rails 3.2.3)
Error : 'load /Users/Bruno/.irbrc' : undefined method `source_location' for #<Proc:0x10f116678>

On launch.

Tilo over 12 years ago

Hirb also renders Mongoid documents in a MySQL-like table!
replacement for 'rails dbconsole' for Mongoid:
http://crumbtrail.chesmart.in/post/1334264255/handy-bits-for-mongoid-with-rails-3

ricardo cruz over 12 years ago

fancy_irb isn't working from the Console, I get:

cannot load such file -- fancy_irb

However it works if I execute irb, how can I fix this?

regedarek over 12 years ago

Is any substitute for fancy_irb when im using pry instead of irb ??

Ari about 12 years ago

I find that "reload!" is extremely useful in the rails console when doing development; it reloads your environment, so it should pick up any changes you make to your source files.

Benjamin Reed almost 12 years ago

Methodfinder is great. So many times I run into this case!